








vP^.*'-l 




/ ..\^v^' VW/ V^v^* ^^ 


















&' ^-^ ^ 









J^ 









.^^-^-^ 






















'bV 









'^_ "■• ^^° 



r.c,- 



4O «!. 






« * * r 




s 

^ 


~ 
8 ■ 










\. 








FAMOUS LEADERS 

OF 

CHARACTER 



FAMOUS LEADERS SERIES 

Each, one volume, illustrated $2.00 



CHARLES L. JOHNSTON 

FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS 

FAMOUS SCOUTS 

FAMOUS CAVALRY LEADERS 

FAMOUS PRIVATEERSMEN 

FAMOUS FRONTIERSMEN 

FAMOUS DISCOVERERS AND EX- 
PLORERS OF AMERICA 

FAMOUS GENERALS OF THE GREAT 
WAR 

BY 

EDWIN WILDMAN 

FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 

First Series 
FAMOUS LEADERS OF INDUSTRY 

Second Series 
FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 



THE PAGE COMPANY 

53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 






m.< ■ ■ 



-^ 




Courtesy of Mr. Frederick Hill Meserve 

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 



THE FAMOUS LEADERS' SERIES 



OF CHARACTER 

IN AMERICA FROM THE LATTER 
HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY 



THE LIFE STORIES OF BOYS WHO HAVE IMPRESSED THEIR PER- 
SONALITIES ON THE LIFE AND HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



BY 

EDWIN WILDMAN 

Former Editor of The Forum 

Author of "Famous Leaders of Industry, First Series,' 

"Famous Leaders of Industry, Second Series," 

"Reconstructing America — Our 

Next Big Job," etc. 



SllttctrateH 




BOSTON 
COMPANY 



THE PAGE 
MDCCCCXXII 






Copyright, i<)22, 
By The Page Company 

All rights reserved 



Made in U. S. A. 



First Impression, October, 1922 



PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY 
BOSTONj MASS., U. S. A. 



OCT 21 '22 

©C1A686438 



INTRODUCTION 

To my boy friends : 

Do you know the stirring stories in the lives of Lodge 
and Harding, Wilson and Roosevelt; of Sumner and 
Garrison and Phillips ; of Cleveland ; of Hale ; of Robert 
E, Lee? These are men whose names stand for great 
minds and brave and noble characters. 

In this volume I have sought to bring together a group 
of men who, unlike the average American, have counted 
success, not so much in dollars and cents, as in a devotion 
to high ideals. Money has been to them of secondary 
consideration, if of any consideration at all. Although 
they have been constantly brought in contact with the 
ways and ideas of men of the world, which were abso- 
lutely contrary to their ideals, these men have been loyal 
and faithful in practice, as well as profession, to the 
spiritual qualities of justice, mercy, purity and honesty. 
They have been soldiers of the spirit, great-hearted men 
of action, who have won the admiration and respect of 
even their bitterest enemies. 

The need of the hour has been met by these men of 
moral strength. They have given out, instead of taking 
in. In being true to themselves, they have been true to 
others. Their early struggles to do right, developed in 
them those qualities which were, later, to benefit the 
world. 

V 



vi INTRODUCTION 

Some of these men lived a long time ago, and only the 
fact of their greatness has lived down to us. Their 
appearance, their little peculiarities, their friendships, 
their struggles have been forgotten in the brightness of 
the victories — not always material, but often moral 
victories — which we remember. 

I have dealt chiefly with the incidents of their youth. 
It is there that we find the great influences for good. 
You will find that in most cases it is the boy who finds 
an ambition in his boyhood, and who has the strength of 
character to fight for it, plug for it, whether it be an 
ideal of justice, of wealth, of philanthropy, or of power, 
who wins out to greatness. 

I feel that these stories will appeal to the grown man, 
as much as to the boy, for it is in the daily happenings 
of the home, the little incidents of school life, that future 
traits of character are discerned. These qualities are not 
always born in a man, but are as often gained by a 
continual struggle to overcome that which is unworthy. 

You will find the greatness of character that is in these 
men even more interesting than the greatness of soldiers, 
of Indian Chiefs, or Leaders of Industry, because these 
men had harder fights to fight, and often in seeming 
defeat their victory was bigger. 

Edwin Wildman. 



CONTENTS 



William Lloyd Garrison 

The man who paved the way for Lincoln 

Robert E. Lee .... 

Duty, above all things 

Abraham Lincoln 

The Great Emancipator 

Charles Sumner 

A Martyr to his Principles 

Horace Greeley 

America's Pioneer N ewspaper Genius 

Wendell Phillips 

The Silver-Tongued Abolitionist 

Edward Everett Hale 

Preacher, Organizer and Author 

Leland Stanford 

Great Pioneer of the West 

Charles William Eliot, LL.D. 

A Great Educational Leader 

Phillips Brooks 

Great Preacher-Philosopher 

Moody and Sankey 

Pioneer Evangelists 

Grover Cleveland 

Twice President of the United States 

John Burroughs 

America's Great Naturalist 

Henry Cabot Lodge . 

Defender of the Constitution 

WooDROw Wilson 

Educator — War President — Statesman 

Theodore Roosevelt . 

The Idol of his Country 



PAGE 

3 
17 

29 

43 

55 

71 

83 

99 

111 

123 

135 

153 

167 

179 

195 

209 



vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

BooKEE T. Washington 225 

The Educational Leader of the Negro Race 

William Jennings Bryan 239 

A Crusader of Advanced Ideals 

Major-General Leonard Wood .... 253 

Apostle of Peace and Preparedness 

Charles Evans Hughes ...... 269 

A Great American Statesman 

Warren Gamaliel Harding 285 

President — Champion of Sound Americanism 

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis .... 299 

The Supreme Court of Baseball 

Benjamin Burr Lindsey 313 

A Judge %cho believes all Boys are good 

Calvin Coolidge 327 

The Man who stood for Law and Order 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

William Lloyd Garrison (see page 3) Frontispiece 

Robert E. Lee 17 

Abraham Lincoln 29 

Charles Sumner 43 

Horace Greeley 55 

Wendell Phillips 71 

Edward Everett Hale 83 

Leland Stanford 99 

Charles William Eliot, LL.D Ill 

Phillips Brooks 123 

Dwight Lyman Moody 135 

Ira David Sankey 145 

Grover Clevelane) 153 

John Burroughs 167 

Henry Cabot Lodge ....... 179 

Woodrow Wilson 195 

Theodore Roosevelt 209 

Booker T. Washington 225 

William Jennings Bryan 239 

Major-General Leonard Wood .... 253 

Charles Evans Hughes 269 

Warren Gamaliel Harding 285 

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis . . . 299 

Benjamin Burr Lindsey 313 

Calvin Coolidge 327 



(M ix 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 

(l«orj--ih7i)) 

THE MAN WHO PAVED THE WAY 
EOR LINCOLN 



FAMOUS LEADERS OF 
CHARACTER 

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 

(1805-1879) 

THE MAN WHO PAVED THE WAY, 
FOR LINCOLN 

TEIUMPHING over adverse fortune, poverty, 
and tlie endless struggles which usually confront 
the advanced reformer, William Lloyd Garrison 
grew to the stature of a permanent place in the world's 
history, before he died at a ripe old age. 

There were handicaps from the very first, for when 
Lloyd was scarcely three years old, his father left his 
family in the little frame house on School Street in 
Newburyport, Mass., never to return. 

The romantic courtship which his father had suc- 
cessfully conducted with his mother, Fanny Lloyd, the 
belle of that small pioneer colony on Deer Island, 
N. B., ended as swiftly as it began. 

Abijah Garrison, a sailor, Lloyd's father, during one 

of his brief rests ashore, spied Fanny Lloyd entering 

chapel on a Sunday morning, and followed. He had 

to wait till the service was over, which no doubt in- 

3 



4 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

spired him with inner grace, though it did not ap- 
pear in the brusque manner of his instantaneous court- 
ship. The girl, tall, dark, imperious, was dressed in 
blue. Not knowing her name, the sailor called her 
*'Blue-jacket" and requested permission to escort her 
home. He was promptly rebuffed, but later secured 
a letter of introduction and, after a brief courtship, 
they were married. 

The audacity and courage, the boldness of Lloyd 
Garrison's career, when facing the hostility that con- 
fronted him in his life work of reformation in the great 
National issues of temperance and abolition of slavery, 
probably came from his father, though he scarcely re- 
membered him. His only recollection of his father 
was the vague figure of a big man with a bald head, 
a reddish beard, and a noticeable scar, that was most 
unsightly, on his neck and face. He was only three 
years old when this sea-captain deserted his mother 
without providing means of support for her or her three 
children. The reformer epitomizes this act of his 
father's in the following comment : 

"There is no doubt that his love for my mother was 
almost romantic; and it is questionable, when he de- 
serted her, if he meant the separation to be final." 

From his mother came that deep strain of pity and 
forbearance which dominated his life. Probably from 
his mother also came much of his defiant spirit against 
those who declined to accept the truth as he saw it, 
for she had demonstrated that spirit as a young girl, 
and accepted the sacrifice it involved. Her firmness of 
character was inflexibly allied with her conscience. 



WILLIAM LLOYD GAREISON 5 

Her parents were Episcopalians, bigoted in their in- 
tolerance for any other religious denomination. One 
day when she was a young girl, out of curiosity, with 
a party of young people, she attended the service of a 
Baptist preacher, held in a barn. At that time the 
Baptists were despised by the small community of 
Episcopalians. The Baptist preacher, by the humility 
of his sermon, the earnestness of his plea, completely 
captured the passer-by. Shortly afterwards she an- 
nounced to her family that she found it necessary for 
the peace of her heart and mind publicly to acknowl- 
edge the Baptist faith. Every effort and threat were 
used by her parents to alter her decision, but it was 
a matter of duty to God, as she regarded it, and though 
she asked her parents' forgiveness, she was publicly 
baptized in the Baptist faith and was banished from 
her home in consequence. She then went to live with 
an uncle until she was married. 

The inner fires of conscientious conviction that were 
so often sorely tried in the life of Lloyd Garrison came 
direct from that mother of whom, in later years, he 
wrote in a letter to his fiancee : 

"I had a mother once who cared for me with pas- 
sionate regard. Her mind was . . . clear, vigorous, 
creative, and lustrous, and sanctified by an ever glow- 
ing piety. How often did she watch over me, — weep 
over me — and pray over me." 

Spiritual quality was not lacking in those days of 
intense, practical struggle, for during the subsequent 
years of hard apprenticeship, the boy, separated from 
her because the family was too poor to hold together, 



6 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

never forgot to "write his mother tenderly and affec- 
tionately. 

Up to his sixteenth year the boyhood of Lloyd Gar- 
rison was a dull period of hard work. He was first 
apprenticed to learn shoemaking in Lynn. He was 
only nine years old then, and so small that he was de- 
scribed as "not much bigger than a last." Of course 
he lacked the strength to pursue this work, but the influ- 
ences of his master, Gamaliel W. Oliver, with whom 
he lived, were no doubt impressive factors in his sub- 
sequent career, for Oliver was a Quaker and imbued 
the future reformer with his hatred of military abuses. 
No special indication of genius appeared in Lloyd dur- 
ing this period of hard, obedient apprenticeship. It 
seemed as though he were destined to become nothing 
greater than a good, serviceable shoemaker. After a 
brief trip to Baltimore, with his mother, where he 
worked for a time in a shoe-factory, he returned to 
his home town, Newburyport, where he was taken in 
by the Birketts, poor people who allowed him to do 
what a boy of ten or eleven years could do, to help 
earn his board. It was then that he obtained his final 
schooling at the Grammar School in the Mall. His 
education, his ultimate brilliancy as a writer and an 
orator, were the gifts of his genius. No special train- 
ing had been his, in fact he had far less schooling than 
most boys of his day. 

Grim necessity of life kept him, during the most 
fonnative years of his youth, apprenticed at some- 
thing. For a time he was apprenticed to Moses Short, 
a cabinet maker at Haverhill, Mass. But he became 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 7 

homesick for Newburyport, and tying all his posses- 
sions in a small bundle, he slipped out of the back 
window of his master's home one day and started away 
on foot. When he was caught, he confessed his home- 
sickness and was released from this apprenticeship law- 
fully. After a brief sojourn with Deacon Bartlett, 
he secured an apprenticeship in the printing shop 
of the Newburyport Herald, owned by Ephraim W. 
Allen. There he spent a seven years' apprenticeship 
learning not only the trade, but th^' great power of 
that trade in public opinion and intellectual freedom. 
In the meantime his mother, ill but in the care of 
kindly friends, remained in Baltimore, having passed 
through an epidemic of yellow-fever there in 1818, 
which left her in a very weak and helpless condition. 
The dominant inspiration of Lloyd's career as a 
writer and public speaker was the religious devotion 
of his mother. To the end of his life, his favorite 
habit on Sunday mornings was to sing the old tradi- 
tional hymns, "Coronation," "Hebron," "Ward," 
"Denmark," "Lenox," "Majesty," accompanying him- 
self on the piano with one finger. He had sung in 
the boys' choir of the church, and the habit then formed 
never deserted him. 

It was during his apprenticeship as a printer that 
Lloyd Garrison began to read extensively, his favorite 
literature being poetry. Like most boys he preferred 
romantic fiction, especially the Waverley novels. His 
favorite poets were those of all the world, Byron, 
Moore, Pope, Campbell, and others. He became en- 
thusiastically attached to the poems of Mrs. Hemans, 



8 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

committing tliem to memory. His first articles, un- 
published, were political, based largely upon the en- 
vironment of his home town, which was an ardent 
Federalist community. In this direction of thought, 
he read such leaders as Fisher Ames, Timothy Pick- 
ering, and Harrison Gray Otis. He was just past six- 
teen when he sent his first article to the press. Writ- 
ing in a disguised hand, he posted it to the editor of 
his own paper, the Herald. It was anonymously 
signed "An Old Bachelor." The title of this first 
effort was "Breach of the Marriage Promise," and 
concerned the reflections of a bachelor on reading a 
verdict in a breach of promise suit in Boston. 
Wrote this "bachelor of sixteen" in 1822: 
"The truth is, however, women in this country are 
too much idolized and flattered; therefore, they are 
puffed up and inflated with pride and conceit. . . . 
For my part, notwithstanding, I am determined to lead 
the ^single life' and not trouble myself about the 
ladies." 

The "Editor" accepted the anonymous contribution 
and handed it imknowingly to the author to set up in 
type. Other contributions were sent and duly pub- 
lished. One of them purporting to be an account of 
a shipwreck was palpably written by some one totally 
ignorant of the sea or ships. The "Editor," no more 
informed about marine ways than the author, pub- 
lished it in the Herald. His mother, upor hearing 
of his secret contributions to the press, wisely urged 
him to think well before embarking on a "pitiful" 
career. 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 9 

"Next, your turning Author," she writes him ac- 
knowledging his confessions, "you have no doubt read 
and heard the fate of such characters, that they gen- 
erally starve to death in some garret or place that no 
one inhabits. So you may see what fortune and luck 
belong to you if you are of that class of people." 

A similar boyish article entitled "Essay on Mar- 
riage" closed his apprenticeship to the Herald, in 
1825, in which he cynically reflects, "Of all the con- 
ceits that ever entered into the brains of a wise man, 
that of marriage is the most ridiculous." With this 
casual dismissal of marriage, he closed that indefinite 
period of his life and three months later became pub- 
lisher and editor of the Free Press in Newburyport. 
Mr. Allen, the publisher of the Herald, obligingly but 
secretly loaned him the money with which to begin his 
venture. The motto chosen by the future reform- 
leader of world-fame was significant; it indicated the 
suppressed emotions in his consciousness of National 
issues. The motto was, "Our Country, Our Whole 
Country, and Nothing But Our Country." 

Many editorial experiments came after this brief di- 
rection of the Free Press that demonstrate the influ- 
ences that dominated Lloyd Garrison's character. In 
a narrower sense than he showed it to be later, patriot- 
ism was its initial impulse. From this source of deep 
expression came others with years and experience. 
Once having emancipated himself from the hated ap- 
prenticeships to machine labor, Lloyd Garrison ad- 
vanced along the road to fame with great strides. 
Even his second editorial venture as editor of the 



10 FAMOUS LEADEES OF CHARACTER 

Journal of the Times, whicli be took charge of at the 
invitation of men in Bennington, Vermont, showed 
this. Wearing Cicero's badge, a favorite quotation on 
the face of his paper, "Reason shall prevail with ns 
more than Public Opinion," the young editor spread 
his wings over the pages under such convincing head- 
ings as "Moral," "Education," "Temperance," "Slav- 
ery," "Political," etc. His outstanding promise to 
his subscribers was that the newspaper would remain 
Independent. In his declaration of faith the ardor 
and challenge of reform were fearlessly predicted. 

"When the election is over, our literary and moral 
departments will exhibit a fullness and excellence com- 
mensurate with their importance," he writes naively, 
regretting the election crisis, in spite of all. 

Slavery was a political issue of bitter character in 
the Presidential campaign of General Jackson, and it 
was this issue that seized the heart and brain of Lloyd 
Garrison when he was in the throes of his first editorial 
campaign in politics. The flame kindled by Major 
Lundy in Garrison's soul burned stronger, for in the 
earlier numbers of the Journal he proposed the for- 
mation of anti-slavery societies in Vermont. Lundy's 
faith in his friend Garrison as a leader was demon- 
strated when he walked from Baltimore where he was 
publishing Genius, a publication devoted to the 
cause of anti-slavery, to Bennington, Vermont, to in- 
duce him to put his weight behind the smaller news- 
paper. Garrison accepted the call to become editor 
of Genius with a solemnity which was almost a sacred 
vow to the great cause which he subsequently supported 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 11 

so triumphantly. This was the turning-point in his 
career, from the merely material interests of journal- 
ism, to the definite sacrifices of a great ideal for which 
the entire nation has honored him. This is fore- 
shadowed in his last editorial printed just before his 
retirement as editor of the Journal in Vermont. 

"I trust God that I may be the humble instrument 
of breaking at least one chain, and restoring one cap- 
tive to liberty; it will amply repay a life of severe 
toil." 

The pledge was made without regard to the con- 
sequences. It was a solemn vow to maintain an ideal 
that had been the cause of bitter contention. The 
Northern seaboard States were loath to loose the hu- 
man cargoes of slaves shipped from the South for sale 
in the Northern slave markets. The Southern States 
were unwilling to abandon a profitable commerce in 
slaves, also. The courage and justice of the great abo- 
litionist's acceptance of the editorial policy of Genius 
gave him his place in histoiy. 

A few weeks intervened between the time that Gar- 
rison left Bennington, where he had been prosperous 
and happy, for Baltimore to take up his new duties 
as editor of an abolitionist organ, published in a slave 
State. His address entitled "Dangers to the Nation," 
delivered in Bennington, July 4th, 1824, in favor of 
the colonization societies, committed him to the narrow 
and dangerous pathway of Reform. It was an in- 
spired arraignment of the inhumanity of slavery, a 
declaration of faith in liberty and justice, in the face 
of National anger and blind commercial viewpoints. 



12 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

The remarkable fact that Garrison was only twenty- 
four years old at this time must be noted, a promising 
indication of his unselfish devotion to what he believed 
was the truth. Just as his mother had sacrificed her 
home ties for her faith, her son put aside his personal 
comfort and safety for the ideal of his character. 

A Boston newspaper, commenting on this address, 
described the orator as "of quite youthful appearance, 
and habited in a suit of black, with his neck bare, and 
broad linen collar spread over that of his coat. His 
prefatory'- remarks were inaudible by the feebleness of 
his utterance, but as he advanced, his voice was raised, 
his confidence regained, and his earnestness became 
perceptible." 

On his arrival in Baltimore, he informed his part- 
ner. Major Lundy, that immediate and unconditional 
emancipation was the only solution. This was in 
August, 1829. Lundy, less radical in his views, re- 
plied cautiously, "Thee may put thy initials to thine 
articles, and I will put my initials to mine, and each 
will bear his own burden." Garrison accepted, adding, 
"I shall be able to free my soul," 

With the exception of their friendship with some of 
the more intelligent colored people, both Garrison and 
Lundy lived in a small circle of Quaker friends. As to 
money, there was none, Garrison humorously announc- 
ing, editorially, that he had not found it necessary to 
own a purse. In spite of poverty, the abolitionist strug- 
gled on towards his goal. Finally, he was indicted for 
libel on a statement that involved a cargo of slaves 
shipped from his home town, Newburyport, to New Or- 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 13 

leans, which was in violation of Congressional order, 
forbidding foreign slave traffic. The slaves on the ship 
had been seized in Africa. The conviction by the jury, 
secured in fifteen minutes, carried a fine of $100, an 
amount in those days sufficiently large to be severe. It 
was probably more money than Garrison or Lundy had 
ever liad at one time. The alternative was imprison- 
ment. On April 17, 1830, Garrison entered the Balti- 
more jail, and Genius suspended publication. A lit- 
tle over a month later he was released through the gener- 
osity of Arthur Toppin who advanced the $100 re- 
quired. In the same year, without money, subscribers, 
or equipment, Garrison formed a partnership with Isaac 
Knapp, equally destitute, to publish The Libera- 
tor, which made its appearance January 1, 1831. The 
motto of this famous publication was the firebrand that 
set ablaze the great conflict of bitter opinion which led 
to the Civil War. It read : 

"Our Country is the World — Our Countrymen are 
Mankind." 

For some years in a dingy garret these two valiant 
defenders of American liberty worked, slept, and lived 
on meager fare. The annual expense of the editor of 
The Liberator was $700. They pledged themselves 
to print the paper so long as they "could subsist on bread 
and water." The Liberator became a lusty waif, sus- 
tained by mysterious friends, at unexpected times. 

In 1834, when he was thirty-five years of age, the 
great abolitionist married the daughter of George M. 
Benson of Providence, a supporter of the anti-slavery 
movement. 



14 FAMOUS LEADEES OF CHAKACTER 

As the cause of anti-slavery enlarged and extended 
its agitation, the fire of hatred increased. George 
Thompson, the agent of the London Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety, arrived in Baltimore to help his American friend 
who had founded the New England Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety through The Liberator. Garrison himself was 
mobbed in the streets of Boston and had to escape from 
Philadelphia after the Pennsylvania Hall, in which a 
meeting had been held, was burned down by the mob. 
After endless strife, bitterness, and battle, which car- 
ried the determined abolitionist into the stormy period 
of Lincoln's administration, he abandoned the battle- 
ground of his ideals in 1865, at the age of sixty, and 
The Liberator, in its thirty-fifth volume, suspended. 

Without occupation or any savings account, Garrison 
at this advanced age contemplated writing a "History of 
the Anti-Slavery Movement," but he never began it. A 
National testimonial fund was raised by his friends, 
which gave him a competence, and in May, 1879, at the 
age of seventy-four, he died at his daughter's home in 
New York, where he had gone for medical treatment. 

The last few years of his life were agreeably spent in 
travel in Europe. During this peaceful period he wrote 
many articles, always in line with the reform spirit of 
his character. 

He lived and died in the pioneer spirit of a fear- 
less, vigorous, determined idealist who had no selfish or 
material profit from any of his work. 



ROBERT E. LEE 

(1807-1870) 

DUTY, ABOVE ALL THINGS 




l-'rom " Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee," published by 
Doubleday, Page S: Co. 

ROBERT E. LEE 



ROBERT E. LEE" 

(1807-1870) 

DUTY, ABOVE ALL THINGS 

THE supreme test of a man born to be a soldier is 
his obedience to duty. This is well established in 
past history. And the strategy of war, like the 
strategy of character, aims to win. Though defeat does 
not wholly disqualify a soldier, it does impose on him 
the penalty of surrender. 

General Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Confeder- 
ate Forces in the field against General Grant, though 
defeated, is a superb figure in history. Much has been 
said in the South of his aristocratic ancestors. The 
pride of blood in his native State, Virginia, has survived 
three centuries of American democracy. Still, the pre- 
dominant feature of Lee's character was the simple 
pride in doing his duty. He never took credit for his 
acts on the ground that he was a distinguished de- 
scendant of the F. F. V.'s (First Families of Virginia). 
There is nothing in his letters, or in his memoirs of his 
friends, that reveals the slightest trace of this. He 
looked and lived what he was born, a gentleman. In 
spite of his surrender to Grant, he knew disaster, but 
not defeat. Defeat of personal character was never his. 

The issues of the Civil War have been submerged in 

17 



yl^'^ 



18 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAEACTER 

the magnanimous impulse to forgive and forget that is 
essentially a characteristic of American manhood. It is 
not necessary to attach these issues to this brief reflection 
on Lee's place in history. He himself was among the 
men who frankly urged the tolerance of reconstruction 
sentiment after the Civil War was over. To those who 
read this from the shadow of their own experiences in 
the World War, Lee's conduct as a man is impressive. 
In 1807, when the leader of the Confederate Army 
y)» was born, Washington's personality still survived, a vig- 

orous, living influence, although he had been dead about 
V^ twenty years. General Lee's father had married a Car- 

ter, and in the parlor of the Lee homestead hung a por- 
trait of General Washington, personally presented to 
General Nelson, who gave it to his daughter, Mrs. Car- 
ter. The old Virginia families, in 1807, still talked of 
and emulated the spirit and character of Washington, 
as if he were yet to be seen on the wide veranda of his 
home in Mount Vernon. ISTot less prominent in Na- 
tional life than Washington was the Lee family. Gen- 
eral Lee's father, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, was a 
famous character of colonial quality. The Lees and the 
Carters had always been Governors, or ofiicials of high 
rank, in Virginia. 

As a young man, General Lee had all the appearance, 
reserve of manner, and gentleness of character that he 
had inherited from his ancestors, who, in the days of 
Charles II of England, had been cavaliers. But his 
ideal was not among these swash-buckling heroes of the 
English Court. He was dominated by the character of 
Washington. He had heard so much about him at home, 



ROBERT E. LEE 19 

that he knew him* as well as if he had really met him. 
His father had been selected by Congress to deliver the 
memorial address on Washington's death, in which he 
wrote that immortal phrase in enlogy of the great Gen- 
eral, "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts 
of his countrymen." This tribute of a Lee to the mem- 
ory of the First President of the United States seemed 
to glow inwardly in the character of Robert E. Lee, 
the soldier. 

The Lee homestead, called Stratford, was built by 
Thomas Lee, grandson of Richard Lee who emigrated 
from England in 1641-2 and founded the family. 
When the old mansion was burned down, Queen Anne, 
in recognition of services rendered by the Lees in Vir- 
ginia, contributed liberally to the restoration of the man- 
sion. It is a historical landmark in America. In it, 
also, were born two signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, Richard Henry Lee and his brother, Francis 
Lightfoot Lee. 

Against the background of blooded ancestry Robert 
E. Lee grew up with a profound devotion to the princi- 
ples of George Washington, whom, it has been claimed, 
he resembled in character, mould, and formula of expres- 
sion. Traces of this influence on General Lee's life are 
obvious in the style of his letters and in the religious 
impulses that prevailed in him in the midst of war. 

His father died when he was eleven years old, and he 
was brought up by his mother. His boyhood was spent 
in Alexandria, alive with Washingtonia, and he attended 
the same church as Washington had. His choice of a 
military career took him to the West Point Military 



20 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Academy in 1825, wlien he was eighteen. He entered 
as a cadet from Virginia, having received his appoint- 
ment from Andrew Jackson, to whom he applied in 
person. 

Shortly after his graduation, with the minor rank of 
Lieutenant, he married his old playmate. Miss May 
Parke Custis, the granddaughter of Washington's step- 
son. Mrs. Lee was an heiress, the Lieutenant was poor, 
but her pride in him was so great that she decided to 
live on her husband's small income for a time. Later, 
when her husband, commanding the Confederates, was 
struggling to relieve the Southern States of their plight 
for food, this training of her early married life in 
economy came in handy. 

Lee was assigned to the Engineers Corps, and his 
training ground was in the Mexican War. His services 
in Mexico, distinguished for personal bravery and 
strategic ability, secured the opinion of General Scott 
that he was "the greatest living soldier in America." 

It was also General Scott, when the Civil War was 
imminent, who wrote to Lincoln in regard to his selec- 
tion of a commander of the Union Army, "Let it be 
Robert E. Lee." 

His appointment in 1852 as Superintendent of the 
Academy at West Point lasted three years. At the end 
of that time he was assigned to active duty on the South- 
ern frontier with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of a 
cavalry regiment organized by Jeiferson Davis, then 
Secretary of War. In 1859 he was assigned to com- 
mand a force of marines sent to Harpers Ferry to cap- 
ture John Brown and his followers. 



ROBERT E. LEE 21 

It is claimed, and sustained in some quarters, that 
President Lincoln actually offered the command of the 
L^nion forces to Robert E. Lee. Asserting that Francis 
Preston Blair, at the instance and request of Lincoln, 
made him this offer. General Lee says, in a letter of 
February 25, 18GS (after the war) : 

"After listening to his remarks, I declined the offer 
he made me to take command of the army that was to 
be brought into the field, stating as candidly and as 
courteously as I could that, though opposed to secession 
and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion 
of the Southern States." 

Shortly after this he resigned his commission in the 
United States Army, declaring he never wished to draw 
his sword again "save in defense of his native State." 

Reared from boyhood in the school of thought that 
believed ardently in States' Rights, that is, in preserving 
the privilege of any State to withdraw amicably from 
the Union and rejoin later if it saw fit to do so, Lee 
supported the secession of Virginia in principle. His 
father, once Governor of Virginia, had declared in open 
debate at the Virginia Convention, "Virginia is my 
country, her will I obey, howevei' lamentable the fate 
to which it may subject me." 

It is not surprising that his son, Robert E. Lee, felt 
the same bonds that tied him to Virginia. On April 
23, 1860, he received at the hands of the President of 
the State Convention, the commission of Major-General 
of the Virginia forces. Lee's reply of acceptance, 
spoken extemporaneously, is characteristic of his atti- 
tude in the face of a crisis. 



22 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"I accept the position assigned me by your partiality. 
I would have much preferred that your choice had fallen 
on an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, an ap- 
proving conscience, and the aid of my fellow citizens, I 
devote myself to the service of my native State, in whose 
behalf alone will I ever again draw my sword." Later, 
when he became a l^ational figure, and Virginia had 
been invaded, he became an officer of the armies of the 
Confederate States. 

About the military strategy of the Civil War there is 
nothing to add to the volumes already written. The 
purpose of the N"orth to bottle up the South, to isolate 
it from food supply and outside communication, was the 
broad plan of the campaign. Blockading the ports be- 
gan with the first shot at Fort Sumter. 

Lee's attitude toward war, as one of the human dis- 
asters of the world, was one of tolerance and strategy. 
He did not share the opinion of some Generals, that war 
is an indiscriminate assault to the death of one people 
against another. He prescribed and observed certain 
fixed modifications of conduct in war. In orders issued 
January 27, 1863, from his headquarters at Chambers- 
burg, Pa., Lee defined the restrictions, or rather the 
ethics, of war. 

"... No greater disgrace could befall the Army, 
and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of 
the barbarous outrages upon the innocent and defense- 
less and the wanton destruction of private property that 
have marked the course of the enemy in our own coun- 
try. ... It must be remembered that we make war 
only on armed men and that we cannot take vengeance 



ROBERT E. LEE 23 

for the wrong our people have suffered without lowering 
ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been 
excited by the atrocities of our enemy, and offending 
against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without 
whose favor and support our efforts must prove all in 
vain." 

Lee's critics of the years immediately following the 
Civil War claimed that as a soldier he was not al- 
ways vigorous enough. He was never known to put a 
spy to death, and his clemency towards deserters, usually 
men who were distraught by letters from home full of 
distressing stories of hunger, was marked. He was a 
man who declined to mistrust his fellow-man for unfair 
or unjust conduct. Unquestionably tender-hearted, the 
General commanding the Confederate Forces was a sol- 
dier of the old school. He always slept in a tent, for 
fear of disturbing the occupants of houses he might 
have used for headquarters. His mind was never 
wholly in the rage of war; he refused to smother his 
human instincts toward his "enemies" ; he was keenly 
susceptible to the duty he owed others. 

He was devoted to animals, and children disarmed 
his formality. Standing one day with officers of his 
staff in the yard of a house on a hill, the enemy lo- 
cated them and directed a hot fire on them. Suggest- 
ing that the others take refuge elsewhere, he remained 
where he was. Watching him, they saw him pick up a 
young bird, carry it across the yard and put it safely 
on the limb of a tree. 

One of Lee's outstanding traits was his piety. His 
principle as a soldier, in this respect, is revealed in a 



24 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

letter he wrote in 1856 : "We are all in the hands of a 
Kind God who will do for us what is best, and more 
than we deserve, and we have only to endeavor to 
deserve more, and to do our duty to Him, and to our- 
selves. May we all deserve His mercy, His care. His 
protection." 

The retreat from Gettysburg and the surrender of 
Lee's Army at Appomattox were the surrender of a man 
to his accepted duty. In the closing days of the Civil 
War, Bishop Wilmer asked him if he was sanguine 
of the result. 

"At present I am not concerned with results," re- 
plied Lee. "God's will ought to be our aim, and I am 
quite contented that His designs should be accomplished 
and not mine." 

The reckoning of his soul with the piety of his con- 
science was always the calm refuge of Lee in defeat. 
In his farewell address to his Army he said : 

"You will take with you the satisfaction that pro- 
ceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully per- 
formed, and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will 
extend to you His blessing and protection. With an 
increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion 
to your country and a grateful remembrance of your 
kind and generous consideration of myself, I bid you 
an affectionate farew^ell." 

The inward agony of the hour of his defeat at Ap- 
pomattox has only been indicated in a despairing ges- 
ture, as he left the courthouse after signing the articles 
of capitulation, and rode silently away. Lee was si- 
lent in moments of strong emotion. Only a few words 



ROBERT E. LEE 25 

were possible for bim as bis scattered, bareheaded 
soldiers gatbered about bim as be reached tbem. 
Tbey climg to bis saddle, to bis stirrups, weeping 
and crying. 

"Men, we bave fougbt tbrougb tbe war together. I 
have done my best for you ; my heart is too full to say 
more," be said, and rode away. On another occasion 
when be was inspecting a line of troops drawn up along 
tbe road, an officer at bis side said, "These are all Vir- 
ginians, General." Lee removed bis bat, and rode 
bareheaded, silent, down the line in honor of tbe men. 
It was more eloquent than words. 

In tbe aftermath of the Civil War^ General Lee was 
tbe storm center of all the ill-will and rancor of the 
period. It was inferred that ho would be indicted for 
treason by tbe Government. He wrote to Grant stat- 
ing that be thought tbe officers and men of tbe Army 
of !N^orthern Virginia were by the terms of their sur- 
render protected from molestation. Grant instantly te- 
plied in full agreement with General Lee and went at 
once to President Johnson and threatened to resign 
bis own command unless the indictment was quashed. 

Duty was General Lee's chief summons to action. 
After the war he urged the healing of all dissen- 
sions. 

"I have," he said, ''invariably recommended this 
course since tbe cessation of hostilities, and bave en- 
deavored to practice it myself." 

After declining tbe most alluring offers to adorn 
some brilliant commercial enterprises where his name 
would bave garnered the profits. General Lee finally 



26 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

accepted the post of President of Washington Univer- 
sity in Lexington, Va., at a salary of $1500. 

"If my name is worth $50,000," he said to a pro- 
moter who desired to attach it, "do you not think I 
ought to he very careful about taking care of it ?" 

Duty was his captain, and he obeyed Duty to his 
last day, October 30, 1870, when he died peacefully in 
the Lee homestead. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

(1809-1865) 

THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

(1809-1865) 

THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR 

IT is difficult to imagine in these days of steam heat, 
elevators, tall buildings, and trolleys what a wil- 
derness looks like. In the forest lands of any big 
mountain range, miles and miles away from any house, 
with no road or path to follow, perhaps one might get 
an idea of the surroundings in which Abraham Lin- 
coln, the wonderful man who abolished slavery, lived 
as a boy. Not that it matters much where a boy grows 
up, if he is the right kind of a boy ; and though many 
writers of Lincoln's life have dwelt upon the disadvan- 
tages of his lack of education and the poverty of his 
birth, the important fact to remember in it is, — that 
he was the right kind of a boy from the start. 

He was so poor that he did not have what we, to-day, 
consider the necessities of life; but he was a fortunate 
boy, because he had a strong body, was afraid of noth- 
ing, could make a joke and take one, and was always 
ready to see fair-play and justice for himself and 
others. 

It may be unfortunate to be born as poor as Abraham 

Lincoln was, but many poor boys grow up to be rich 

in deeds for which they are honored. 

29 



30 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

A log-cabin may not be a very comfortable place, 
but to Lincoln, as a boy, it wasn't much worse than 
other wooden bouses in which those Americans lived who 
had to do the best they could in a wild, sparsely inhab- 
ited country. Every one had to camp out in those days. 
Even though it was poverty which forced them to camp 
out, it was just the best kind of training for a boy who 
had anything in him. He had some exceptional quali- 
ties to be sure, qualities which gave him the strength 
to stand like a human rock of stone and pity against 
the deluge of blood and passion that sj^ent its force 
upon him in the Civil War. 

As a boy and young man he was tireless, courageous, 
a giant in size and physical strength, and with it all 
he was modest and would acknowledge a mistake as 
quickly as he would fight for his rights. Just a bright 
American boy, was Lincoln, with a kindly character 
and a sense of humor that grew upon him in young 
manhood, and lingered even in the trials that beset him 
in the White House. 

In one of Lincoln's school books of exercises, in a 
nice, round, neat handwriting, is his first joke, written 
when he was about seven years old. He wrote these 
fair lines of school-boy mischief: 

"Abraham Lincoln, 
His hand and pen; 
He will be good, but 
God knows when." 

His mother, ISTancy Hanks Lincoln, was a woman of 
simplicity and strength. She had married his father 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 31 

because she loved hinij and when Abe was born, she 
was living with his father in the poorest kind of a 
shack in the wildest part of Kentucky. But, even 
though she may have felt the pinch of poverty, she did 
her duty towards this boy, tenderly and with the affec- 
tion of motherhood. She taught him not only to read, 
but she awakened his imagination with fairy stories 
and legends that influenced his nature through all his 
life. His kindness, humor, humanity, and hatred of 
slavery came from his mother. This last impression 
was deeply rooted in the boy, inherited with the bit- 
ter rage his mother had for it. Nancy Hanks hated 
slavery and sympathized with the slaves she had often 
seen in bondage, during her girlhood. To Abe, she 
gave that rich inheritance of humanity and pity, that 
became his martyrdom years later. 

Abe used to read anything he could get, but there 
were five books that were the books on which his mind 
fastened, which nourished his soul. They were the 
Bible, "^sop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," "Pil- 
grim's Progress," "A History of the United States," 
and Weem's "Life of Washington." In themselves 
these books form an inspiring start in the world. When 
he got so that he knew these books by heart, and there 
was no way of getting any more, he would read the 
"Statutes of Indiana," and find them interesting. He 
had a habit of copying extracts from these books. His 
pen was made from the feather of a turkey-buzzard, 
there being no geese at hand to make quill-pens from, 
and the ink was made of briar-root. Paper was scarce 
and expensive, so the boy would scratch away with his 



32 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

turkey-buzzard pen and his home-made ink on a board, 
copying his work on paper later. His slate often was 
the wooden fire shovel and his slate pencil a charred 
stick, sharpened. Being a real backwoodsman, at the 
age of seven Abe could use an ax. He helped build 
the second log-cabin in Pigeon Creek, Indiana, where 
his mother died. 

This was his first sorrow. ISTancy Hanks was a vic- 
tim of a pestilence that visited the early settlers when 
Abe was nine years old. He and his sister Sarah waited 
on their mother during her illness. Just before she 
died, she placed her hand on Abe's head and said, "Be 
good to one another." This became the deepest inspi- 
ration of Lincoln's life, it being his silent prayer for 
humanity during the trying war days in the White 
House. 

"I owe all that I am or hope to be to my sainted 
mother," he said when he was President. 

These first years in the wilderness brought out the 
superior strength and character of a boy, as only hard 
camp life in the open can. Lincoln reached manhood 
with this supreme advantage. He was six feet four 
inches tall. He could lift and carry a weight of six 
hundred pounds, and he had a sense of humor that made 
him popular among young and old. He fought his way 
up the ladder because he was too active to stay at the 
bottom. 

The greatest gift Lincoln had was the clearness of his 
arguments. It was this talent, developed when he 
was young, discovered in his boyhood almost, that 
helped him to the front in l^Tational life. It was a gift 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 33 

he worked hard to achieve. His ability to press home a 
maxim or a conclusion by some homely figure of speech, 
some tale that illustrated his point, was a studied art 
of speechmaking. It was the custom in those early 
days, before politics became too complicated, for boys 
to boast that they would some day be ''President." 
Lincoln, in all his reading, wanted to fit himself for a 
profession, but in a joking way he used to say, "I'll be 
President," and when they made fun of him he would 
answer, "Oh ! I'll study and get ready, and then the 
chance will come." 

Part of his "study" was to achieve a clearness of 
expression, a simple formula with which to drive home 
his point. He acknowledged how he had been in- 
fluenced to make this study. 

"I never went to school more than six months in my 
life," he said, "but I can say this: that among my 
earliest recollections I remember how, when a mere 
child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to 
me in a way I couldn't understand. I don't think I 
ever got angry at anything else in my life, but that al- 
ways disturbed my temper; and has ever since. I can 
remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the 
neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and 
spending no small part of the night walking up and 
down and trying to make out what was the exact 
meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. When 
I caught the idea, — I repeated it over and over, until 
I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for 
any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of 
passion with me^ and has stuck by me." 



34 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

By the time Lincoln was twenty-two be left his 
father's roof, where his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lin- 
coln, had taken his mother's place and done all she 
could for him ; and he began his own battle of life — 
alone. 

The principal means of conveyance in those days 
was the water-ways, and families moving from one 
State to another usually hired a flat-bottomed boat and 
poled up or floated down the rivers. Lincoln, as a 
young man, knew the channels, and he piloted many a 
flat-boat through the Illinois River. For awhile he 
lived at ISTew Salem, where he had the reputation of 
being able to beat any one in the country at running, 
jumping, or wrestling. Here he was taunted by a 
gang of bullies, led by Jack Armstrong. This resulted 
in a victorious fight for young Lincoln and was of great 
importance to his whole life, for it gave him a standing 
in the community which never left him years later. He 
had subdued a gang of toughs who had disturbed the 
whole neighborhood for years, and earned even their 
respect, for they voted him "the cleverest fellow that 
has ever broken into the settlement." 

In New Salem he clerked in a store and, having 
some time on his hands, mastered the English gram- 
mar from a textbook which was loaned to him. 

When he was twenty-three, encouraged by his popu- 
larity and the probable support of the county, he an- 
nounced himself as a candidate for the General As- 
sembly of Illinois. This was all that was necessary. 
A candidate was expected only to declare his senti- 
ments with regard to local affairs. He made his dec- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 35 

laration in a circular of two thousand words, and 
wound up his appeal with the modesty that was char- 
acteristic of him. 

"Considering, fellow citizens, the gi'eat degree of 
modesty which should always attend youth, it is prob- 
able I have already been more presuming than be- 
comes me. . . . Every man is said to have his peculiar 
ambition. Whether it is true or not, I can say for one 
that I have no other so great as that of being truly 
esteemed by my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy 
of their esteem. ... If the good people in their wis- 
dom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have 
been too familiar with disappointments to be very 
much chagrined." 

He distributed these circulars himself. His ac- 
quaintance with his constituents was promising. They 
almost adored him for the qualities of character he 
had already demonstrated. It was these first constitu- 
ents of his public career who christened him "Honest 
Abe," a title conferred upon him by the people, which 
he never outgrew. He failed to get the election, al- 
though he made a good showing. This was the only 
time in his life that Abraham Lincoln was defeated 
by a direct vote of the people. 

It was by accident that he became a lawyer. He 
found an old copy of "Blackstone's 'Commentaries' " 
and devoured it. Discovered one day by his employer, 
sitting on a woodpile reading a book, he was asked what 
he was doing there. 

"I'm studying," replied Abe. 

"Studyin' what ?" he was asked. 



36 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Law, sir," was the emphatic reply, which so aston- 
ished his employer that he left him alone. 

He was appointed postmaster in 1833, but the reve- 
nue was so small that he had to do odd jobs, the one 
he got oftenest being splitting rails. But the oppor- 
tunities of the postmaster to extend his acquaintance, 
to enlarge an intimacy in local circles, were great. 

Political conscience was something Abraham Lin- 
coln prized very highly, so much so that when John 
Calhoun offered him the position of deputy surveyor 
in the State, he went to Springfield to see him. Cal- 
houn was a Jackson man, Lincoln was a follower of 
Henry Clay. He refused to accept the appointment if 
it had any political obligation. When this assurance 
was given him, the only difficulty in the way was the 
fact that he knew nothing about surveying. He mas- 
tered the rudiments of this work in six weeks by work- 
ing night and day at the study of it. During his sur- 
veying trips he vastly increased his political advan- 
tages, by his personality and his fund of good stories 
that gave him a reputation throughout the country. 
He would joke with people, tell stories to girls and 
boys, nurse the babies, — do anything to accommodate 
anybody. 

His first stump speech illustrates the homely, sincere, 
humorous quality of Lincoln as a young man, which 
mellowed into the splendor of deep feeling in the ora- 
tory of his later life. It was delivered at a public 
sale, in a village a few miles outside of Springfield, 
Hlinois. 

"Fellow Citizens — I presume you all know who I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 37 

am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been 
solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the 
Legislature. My politics are 'short and sweet,' like the 
old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. 
I am in favor of the internal improvement system 
and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments 
and political principles. If elected, I shall be thank- 
ful ; if not it will be all the same." 

Young Lincoln's ambition at twenty-five was lifted to 
the highest possible pitch when he fell in love with 
Anne Rutledge. She was a girl superior in education 
and inheritance, to himself, and reciprocated his feel- 
ing; but she died shortly afterwards. Under the in- 
fluence of her love, he spoke with a fire he had never 
used before in his campaign for election to the Legis- 
lature, and was triumphantly elected. After his elec- 
tion he realized that he could not go to the capital at 
Vandalia in the shabby clothes he had worn in New Sa- 
lem. The dilemma was a great joke to him, though, 
and he went to another joker with his problem. 

"Smoot, did you vote for me ?" Lincoln asked him. 

"I did that very thing." 

''Well — that makes you responsible. You must 
lend me money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to 
make a decent appearance in the Legislature." 

"How much do you want?" 

"About two hundred dollars, I reckon." 

And he received that amount on the spot. 

Twenty-five years later Abraham Lincoln's fame had 
reached a National size, and at the Chicago Conven- 
tion of the Republican Party, in the spring of 18 60^ he 



38 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTEB 

was nominated for President of the United States, in 
the running with Seward, Chase, and others. 

Lincoln's notification by the Committee, of his nom- 
ination, was a very modest ceremony. Perhaps a dozen 
people were in the street, in front of his house, when 
the gentlemen arrived. Lincoln's son was astride a 
gatepost ; his wife, who had been Mary Todd, was busy 
about the house. They entered the plain, two-story 
house, and Lincoln listened to the formal announce- 
ment. His reply was short. Then with great relief, 
as if the event had been one of much annoyance, he 
shook hands all round and began to tell a story. 

The bitterness, the dissension of feeling over the 
slave question, Lincoln's own positive position as the 
enemy of slavery, aroused the people of the jSTorthem 
and Southern States to intense conflict. Lincoln's elec- 
tion meant the signal of rebellion. Secession began im- 
mediately following his nomination^ led by South Caro- 
lina. Seven other Southern States followed. Presi- 
dent Buchanan, in deference to the Southern men in 
his Cabinet, did not oppose secession. The problem 
of preserving the Union was left to Lincoln. He be- 
gan his career in the White House with the grim spec- 
ter of a civil war confronting him. In his farewell to 
his old stepmother, whom he went to see prior to his 
inauguration, when she feared that he would be assas- 
sinated, he said: 

"'No, no. Mother, they will not do that. Trust in 
the Lord and all will be well; we shall see each other 
again." 

His inauguration literally transformed Washington 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 39 

into an armed camp. There was great fear that he 
would be killed. The carriage in which Lincoln rode 
to the Capitol was so closely guarded that it could not 
be seen by the crowd. Sharp-shooters were on the 
roofs along the line of mafch. A board tunnel was 
built, and strongly guarded, through which he could 
enter the Capitol. He was used to danger, he had 
faced it all his life. 

From the date of Lincoln's inauguration to the fatal 
night of his assassination, April 14, 1865, his life was 
one of martyrdom for a cause for which he was ready 
to lay down his life. 

His fine sense of justice, his forgiveness of enemies 
and rivals, the self-sacrifice in all the great events of 
his life, his consideration for others, his humility^ and 
his unswerving courage in face of danger, were not 
merely the inheritance of humble origin, but rather the 
supreme triumph of character sustained with a mighty 
will and purpose. 



CHARLES SUMNER 

(1811-1874) 

A MARTYR TO HIS PRINCIPLES 




Courtesy of Mr. Frederick Hill Meserve 

CHARLES SUMNER 




CHARLES SUMNER 

(1811-1874) 

A MARTYR TO HIS PRINCIPLES 

ARVARD, in 1826, when Charles Snmner en- 
tered it, was the same delightful center of am- 
bition for young aristocrats of learning that it 
is to-day. There were certain unwritten laws as to de- 
portment, manner^ and in those days, dress, which have 
made Harvard the cradle of American gentlemen. 

Young Sumner always regarded his personal ap- 
pearance with the utmost care. His clothes took almost 
as large a share of his attention as his studies, but 
he had a will of his own which, as a college student, 
determined his right to a personal liberty in what he 
wore. This led to a difference of opinion with the fac- 
ulty, when he was an undergraduate, in which Sumner 
obstinately stood out for his personal rights, as firmly 
as he stood out later in the great issues of the Nation, 
which he defended according to his point of view. 

There was a generally accepted rule at Harvard that 
the students should wear white waistcoats. When the 
tall, noticeably thin young man, Charles Sumner, ap- 
peared in a buff waistcoat which he prized highly, he 
was informed that the general regulations demanded 
that he wear a white waistcoat. Regarding this as an 

infringement of his personal rights, and having a pride 

43 



44 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

in this particular waistcoat, he insisted that it was not 
buff, but a dull white. The young man had a fine sense 
of color, for he usually wore this fancy waistcoat 
with a cloak of blue camel's hair, that would have 
been outraged by a glaring white waistcoat. However, 
he was told that a buff waistcoat could not be, and never 
would be, white. He claimed that it was white, ^'or 
nearly enough so to comply with the rule." He per- 
sisted in this position and finally carried his point, 
wearing it in spite of the regulations. He refused to 
distinguish buff from white. His will was adamant, 
even then. His will was his dictator all his life. 

He was a rather self-assertive young man, unbend- 
ing in his convictions, not interested in sports, or pretty 
girls, or any other privileges of his student days, 
except the privilege of study. The light burned at all 
hours of the night in his room^ where he spent most 
of his time alone, studying. His friend, Wendell Phil- 
lips, who was one class below him, remembered these 
traits of Sumner as a youth. Considering the out- 
standing place he reached in the critical affairs of the 
Nation, it is probable that these studious habits formed 
at Harvard were the source of his distinguished 
triumphs in the Senate as an orator. Some have com- 
pared it, in moments of tense National importance, to 
the eloquence of Daniel Webster. 

At the time when Charles Sumner was beginning his 
brilliant career as one of the aristocratic ler.ders of 
American liberty, two other great men were struggling 
against poverty, lack of education, and such handicaps 
as Sumner never had — Horace Greeley, at a printing 



CHARLES SUMNER 45 

case in a little country newspaper in Vermont ; and 
Abraham Lincoln, a clerk in a country store in Illinois. 
Sumner was born the same year that Horace Greeley 
was born, when Lincoln in his infancy was just emerg- 
ing from the obscurity of the log-cabin in Kentucky. 
iNot that the superior advantages which the young man 
enjoyed at Harvard could alone have advanced him to 
the high position he held in American statesmanship 
later, for he was a man of superb genius and tremen- 
dous industry, but he represents a type of man in Amer- 
ican progress, created and nursed into action by totally 
different influences than those of Lincoln or Greeley. 
His father, Charles Pinckney Sumner, was an aus- 
tere, rather distant sort of man, which his appointment 
as High Sheriff did not soften. The social and finan- 
cial success of his later life enabled him to send Charles 
to Harvard and to surround him with an atmosphere 
of cultured associates which developed in him an air of 
leisure and charm of manner that placed him among the 
dilettanti of his period. He was brought up to regard 
himself as an aristocrat ; not an arrogant European sort, 
but a most affable, helpful, kindly type of man, kindly 
because he felt an assured superiority. Pride of birth 
and intense self-respect were the benefits of his New 
England ancestry. Although his father had a family 
of nine children, of whom Charles Sumner was the eld- 
est, he left an estate of over $50,000 in his will, which 
in those days was great wealth. Charles' boyhood was 
one of ease and comparative luxury, with an education 
in the superior Latin School and a training at Harvard. 
Always a champion of peace, it seems odd that when 



46 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

he was fifteen he should have wished to enter the Mil- 
itary Academy at "West Point. 

New England, especially Boston, has been the cradle 
of leaders in National life, in literature, in all the de- 
sirable and important branches of culture. Among 
Charles Sumner's friends and schoolmates were men 
who shared public fame with him. Besides Wendell 
Phillips, were such men as James Freeman Clarke, 
Robert C. Winthrop, George S. Hilliard. His intellect- 
ual nursery was among the famous. Daniel Webster, 
the pride of Massachusetts, knew him well as a boy, and 
President John Quincy Adams attended his graduation 
at the Latin School. 

There was nothing amazing or inspiring in his school 
days or in his college life at Harvard. He did fairly 
well all that was expected of him. The first indica- 
tion that the Puritan blood in him would be the force 
that governed him in later years was when he was made 
president of a college temperance society. Socially, 
he took high rank everywhere in Boston, and in fact 
through all his life. As a youth he was tall, lean, self- 
conscious, and shy; as a young man he was delightfully 
agreeable, always anxious to help others, and indefat- 
igable in his search for knowledge from others. The 
young men of his class, nearly a century ago, were in- 
spired by the bearing and manner of thought of such 
men as Daniel Webster, whom they met on the street, 
whose voice they heard often in debate or address. Sum- 
ner was a particularly ardent admirer of Webster, who 
had once grasped him by the hand and promised him that 
"the public held a pledge for him," after listening to 



CHARLES SUMNER 47 

a prize essay the young man had delivered when he was 
twenty-one. 

In his youth; Sumner was rather siekly. One of his 
classmates refers to him in a letter as among the hard 
students while at Harvard. 

"Sumner will be a vast reservoir of law, if he lives 
to be at the bar; which, if you take the bodings of a 
harsh, constant cough and most pale face, might seem 
doubtful." 

Another fellow student writes Sumner: 

''Take a country tour — a long pedestrian tour. . . . 
Give the pallid face a little color, those lean limbs a 
little muscle, and the brawn of your mind a greater 
elasticity." 

And another writes him : 

"Be careful of your healthy my friend, and the day 
is not far distant when- I shall have the proud satis- 
faction of saying that 'Sumner was once my classmate.' " 

His interest in the theater was aroused by the pep 
formance of Charles Kemble's daughter, Frances Kem- 
ble, as "Juliet." She was twenty-one and he was 
twenty-two. He walked from Harvard Square, every 
night, to the Tremont Theater in Boston, to see her. 
But ladies' society never interested him, however, to any 
alarming degree. A famous beauty once made a bet 
she would capture him,' and maneuvered to have him 
take her in to dinner. On the other side of him sat a 
famous old scholar and Sumner soon forgot her presence 
in conversation with the savant. The young lady paid 
her bet, frankly. 

At the end of four years in Cambridge at the Law 



48 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

School, young Sumner returned to his father's home, 
bursting with scholarship and memorized law, but v/ith- 
out any definite plans for the future. It was not nec- 
essary^ for him to work, and for a while he didn't. At 
the end of this time he became a student in a law oince 
in Boston, where' he browsed in the excellent law li- 
brary, doing no drudgery as a copyist, chiefly engaged 
in long conversation with his learned master. He wrote 
some excellent contributions to the Jurist, chiefly law 
essays. Those who knew Charles Sumner in his youth 
were divided as to whether his career would be in the 
paths of literature or in the law. He was admitted to 
the bar in Worcester, Mass., when he was twenty-three. 

His first visit to Washington, where he later became 
a dominating figure in the Senate, brought him into 
contact with Rufus Choate, then in the House of Rep- 
resentatives ; and he listened to sujch giants as Clay, 
Webster, Calhoun, in the Senate; and visited the Su- 
preme Court, when Marshall was Chief Justice. So- 
cially, also, he was invited everywhere and made a 
good impression for his evident learning and manly 
bearing. 

Sumner was conscious, in his youth, that he would 
not make a success as a practicing lawyer. With some 
vague premonition of his future, he had closely studied 
the tricks of oratory of the great orators in Washing- 
ton, as his letters indicate. A former classmate, writ- 
ing to him, shortly after his return from Washington, 
summed up Sumner's future for him, and his handi- 
caps. It is interesting because it may have a bearing 
upon young lav/ students of the present day, who feel 



CHARLES SUMNER 49 

the same hindrances to their success as Sumner did in 
his youth. 

"You are not rough shod enough to travel in the 
stony and broken road of homely, harsh, everyday 
practice. . . . Instead of looking back with regret to 
the practice which you are to leave to other spirits 
touched less finely, and to far less fine issues . . . look 
forward." 

The influence of this generous and complimentary 
advice may have borne fruit, for young Sumner ac- 
cepted a position as instructor at the Law School, in 
Cambridge. During the following three years he 
wrote many articles for the Jurist, and he did 
literary collaborations with such men as Judge Story, 
Professor Greenleaf, and Andrew Dunlap, Attorney- 
General for Massachusetts. This literary drudgery 
finally affected his health. He had been outdistanced 
by young men of his period. Wendell Phillips, his 
schoolmate, became a prominent speaker when Sum- 
ner was unknown. Robert C. Winthrop and Hilliard, 
young men of equal education, were already in the Leg- 
islature when Sumner was twenty-six. These facts 
may have preyed on him silently, for he took a vaca- 
tion, and returned improved in health and spirits. 
Also, he brought back with him some very definite 
views on the slavery question. 

Not until he returned from his long-anticipated trip 
to Europe when he was thirty, did Charles Sumner 
reach the stride of his great career. He settled down 
to practice as a lawyer, going punctually to his ofiice 
in Boston every morning at nine, but for a year or so 



50 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

he made no progress. His first articles in opposition 
to slavery were published in the Boston Advertiser 
and established his position on the issue. He con- 
tended that slavery was against National Right, and 
urged that his friend Longfellow's anti-slavery poems 
be read the world over. His friendship with Rev. Dr. 
William Ellery Channing became a great influence, at 
this time, but it was not until 1845, when he was thirty- 
four, that he began public speaking on the Lyceum cir- 
cuits. The first indication of his gift as a public 
speaker came when he delivered the oration be- 
fore the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard at its 
anniversary. It was a tribute to four eminent gradu- 
ates of the college who had recently died: the Scholar, 
John Pickering; the Jurist, Judge Story; the Artist, 
Washington Allston; and the Philanthropist, William 
E. Channing. These men had all been his personal 
friends, and there entered into his oration that blaze 
of feeling that had been too long submerged in the stu- 
dent of books. He spoke without notes, in a clear, dis- 
tinct voice, with an easy manner which enchanted his 
audience. Longfellow made this entry in his journal 
after hearing the oration : 

"A grand, elevated, eloquent oration from Sumner. 
He spoke it with great ease and elegance; and was 
from beginning to end triumphant." 

His power as an orator was established from that 
address, and everything he said or did publif'ly after 
that was received with profound respect and important 
attention. He was thirty-five years of age when this 
happened. His next lecture, "White Slavery in the 



CHARLES SUMNER 51 

Barbary States," which was a subtle reflection on the 
horrors of slavery, made an impression. Mrs. Han'iet 
Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
had an illustrated edition of this lecture by Sumner 
published. She wrote Sumner after reading it: "It 
appears to me to be fitted to a high class of mind, just 
that class which it is exceedingly difficult to meet." 

Although himself a man with the most careful re- 
gard for caste, he was among the first to lead the army 
in the contest against caste feeling. He argued be- 
fore the Supreme Court the right for colored children 
to occupy the same schoolrooms with white children. 
The Court rendered an adverse decision, but the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts, a few years later, prohibited 
separation of the races into different schools. 

Sumner's attitude as the champion of anti-slavery 
severed him from his popularity in Boston society. 
He lost many friends, but his will was supreme. He 
was often cut in society, and he kept more and more 
aloof from it. Shut out from homes where he had 
been welcome, he wrote Longfellow, — "I do feel the 
desolation of my solitude." His active interests in 
reform increased, however. He fought the admission 
of Texas as a State, the Mexican War bill, then* he 
entered into a controversy with Robert C. Winthrop, 
a Boston idol, which created further social enmity 
against him ; but though he felt his ostracism keenly, it 
did not keep him from doing his duty as he saw it on 
high moral issues of National importance. 

He was elected to the Senate when he was forty, 
after a stormy and bitter campaign. 



52 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Sumner's greatest oratorical effort in the Senate 
was delivered wlien he was in the prime of life, forty- 
four years of age. He spoke for two days, the title of 
the speech being "The Crime Against Kansas." 
Rage seized the opposition Senators, and the conflagra- 
tion of hate which Sumner's marvelous eloquence had 
stirred spread to the Nation. The day following the 
debate, at the close of the session, Sumner was seated at 
his desk on the floor of the Senate, writing. A stranger 
appeared behind him and, before Sumner could rise, 
made a savage attack upon him with a cane. Sumner 
was carried bleeding and faint to the lobby, with in- 
juries from which he never fully recovered. Though 
elected to the Senate a second term, he was obliged 
to visit Europe to recuperate his health. In the mean- 
time, when he was fifty-five, he married the brilliant, 
beautiful Alice Mosan Hooper. They were divorced 
later by mutual consent. He died of heart disease, 
from which he had been suffering some time, in his 
sixty-third year. Neglected by the Senate, and totally 
ignored by the Administration, he gradually faded out 
of the world, having left behind him the glowing em- 
bers of an intellectual force which brought him the 
honors he deserved. 



HORACE GREELEY 

(1811-1872) 

AMERICA'S PIONEER NEWSPAPER 
GENIUS 



HORACE GREELEY 

(1811-1872) 

AMERICA'S PIONEER NEWSPAPER 
GENIUS 

THE farmhouse where the Greeleys first lived was 
in New Hampshire. It was a most attractive 
place for the children of the neighborhood be- 
cause they could always go there on dark winter evenings 
and enjoy themselves. The only light in the big room 
came from the fire, because candles were too expen- 
sive. It was heaped high with pine knots that cracked 
and flared up so that any one could read by it. There 
by the fireside was usually to be found the smartest boy 
in the village, Horace Greeley, the boy to whom other 
children often went for help with their lessons. 

And round the old-fashioned hearthstone the children 
would gather, while Mrs. Greeley told them stories 
or sang the songs they knew and loved to hear. 
She was always ready for a romp with them and 
laughed as happily as they did. Horace, whose hair 
was flaxen and whose skin was fair as a girl's, settled 
himself on these evenings, as on most other evenings, 
in a corner close to the fire, reading a book. They 
might pull him out of his corner by the leg, or hide 
his book — as they often did — to make him play with 

them, but he would never get angry. He would laugh 

55 



56 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

quietly, shake bis head, find his book and go back to 
his corner where he could go on reading. Most of the 
older people used to wonder that he never grew tired of 
reading. But he never did. He got the habit very 
early in life. 

He learned his alphabet from a book when he was 
two years old ; at four he began to read the Bible. By 
the time he was seven or eight he had read the "Ara- 
bian Nights" and at eleven years of age he had read all 
of Shakespeare's works. There was an old retired sea- 
captain, who lived on a farm near by, who used to lend 
him books. He always greeted Horace with some 
question about what he had read. 

"Well, Horace, what's the capital of Turkey?" he 
would ask him, or, "What's the biggest river in Amer- 
ica ?" and Horace never made a mistake in his answers. 

In school he used to sit on one leg, the other dan- 
gling idly, indifferent, just as if the teacher's questions 
were too easy for him. He took pleasure in listen- 
ing to what the other children said at recitation, and 
once he was so surprised at a mistake one of them 
made, that he said out loud, "WTiat a fool !" and then 
turned crimson with shame. The children all liked 
him so much that they only laughed, and so did the 
teacher. 

Although his father was only a poor farmer, Horace 
never complained because he couldn't wear fine clothes 
and have plenty of spending money. If he thought 
about such things at all, as other children did, he showed 
no sign of doing so. All his life, even when he be- 
came a candidate for the Presidency of the United 



HORACE GREELEY 57 

States, he never had time to think about his clothes. 
His mind was too occupied learn inj^ about things that 
were much more important ; so that when he was four- 
teen years old his teacher told his father that there was 
no use to send Horace to school any more because he 
knew as much as the teacher. Instead of boasting about 
it; he was worried to know how he was going to get new 
books to read at home. 

He f(jund a way, as he did years later, when he be- 
came a man and helped the Nation solve the great dif- 
ficulties of the Civil War and aided in the reconstruction 
of the States. He went limiting for bees. He used to go 
bee-hunting so that Ik; could find tlie tree where the 
bees had all the honey stored away. Tlicn he would 
sell tlio lioncy, and witli that inoiiey Ik; bought new 
books from the peddler who came around in a wagon. 
Little Horace was always a good customer for the 
book-peddler. He bought the best books he could get — 
books of j)oetry, romance, history. And he was very 
fond of newspapers. In his own quiet way, he was 
always hunting for knowledge and giving it out to 
those who didn't have it. 

Of course, he was an unusual boy, because he was 
always reading, always talking about what he read, 
even when h(! was chopping wood or hoeing potatoes. 
Horace Greeley was destined to be the great teacher he 
became, because he spent his childhood reading about 
what had happened in the world beyond the little 
farmhouse at Westhaven in Vermont; and he formed 
his own ideas of what was going to happen, from the 
newspapers. Twenty years later, when he became a 



58 FAMOUS LEADERS OP CHARACTER 

great editor, he was able to tell what had happened in 
politics in his own country when he was a child. 

Aside from the difficulty his family had to drag him 
away from the books which he always had in his hand 
when there were any chores to do, he was a gentle, ami- 
able, affectionate boy. Every one liked him, for he 
never got angry. At school he was always chosen as 
the peacemaker for fights between other boys, and he was 
so far ahead of them in their studies that he was always 
willing to help boys older than himself with their 
lessons. 

He was a sickly boy, often confined to the house by 
illness, so that even the sight of rain through the win- 
dows would make him shiver. This delicacy was not 
improved by the exposure of driving the horse plow, 
or hoeing, or driving oxen which, as the son of a 
poor farmer, he had to do. He was intensely practical, 
and based the reasons for everything on the principle 
that two and two make four. 

The first book he ever owned was the "Columbian 
Orator," a selection of recitations, which he declared 
later added nothing to his knowledge or oratory. Be- 
cause of ill health he couldn't join the rough games 
of his schoolmates. He became an expert in checkers. 
In anything that exercised his mind in strategy or logic 
he excelled. 

Years later, in 1872, when he was past sixty, he paid 
a tribute to the little red schoolhouse, in his letter of 
acceptance of the nomination for President of the 
United States. 

"I have a profound regard for the people of that ISTew 



HORACE GREELEY 59 

England wherein I was born," he wrote, "in whose com- 
mon schools T was taught. I rank no other people 
above them in intelligence^ capacity and moral worth." 

His mother, having lost one child, was especially 
tender and careful of Horace and encouraged him in 
his childhood love of books. So he spent a great deal 
of time sitting at his mother's knee while she sat 'spin- 
ning at her "little wheel." She would have the book 
open on her lap, and so he took his daily lessons. In 
this way he learned to read, sideways or even when 
the book was upside down, which added to his reputa- 
tion for learning in the neighborhood, though he him- 
self did not think it very wonderful. 

The first great sorrow of his life was his parting with 
a young man who was his school teacher. He was one 
of the new sort of teachers who never used a rod but 
governed by appealing to the better impulses of the pu- 
pils. When li(! left, there was a festival held in the 
little schoolhouse, at which the parents attended and 
every one "partook of cider and doughnuts." 

To a boy as keen and mentally alert as Horace, the 
period in his childhood, especially in the rural districts, 
was exciting. It was only thirty years after the Rev- 
olution, when the freedom of the people in the colo- 
nies was growing to the great JSTational unity of to- 
day. There were "crisis" and "fight" in the air, still. 
The prejudices and hatreds of the Revolution lingered. 
The matrons of the neighborhood, when they gathered 
around the open fire in the evening for social pleasure, 
used to talk and sing. Dancing was not so popular as 
singing. It was a period of ballads. These ballads 



60 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

were the Revolutionary songs^ often love ditties such 
as ''Cruel Barbara Allen" or a less romantic song of 
over fifty verses called "American Taxation." Mrs. 
Greeley's favorite ballads, which she sang with much 
spirit to Horace, were stirring songs, such as "Boyne 
Water," "The Taking of Quebec," and "Wearing of 
the Green," which dated from 1798. These reflections 
of the J^ational spirit naturally turned his mind to 
subjects that were puzzling maturer minds, and he 
found himself further advanced in general information 
than most children. 

Admitting that he read a great deal as a boy, he re- 
gretted that he had been unable to find a book that 
dealt with agriculture and the natural sciences. While 
enduring the trials of practical farming, he would have 
liked to have some definite information in books or from 
periodicals of advice. There were none to be had in 
those days. 

"I know I had the stulf in me for an efiicient and 
successful farmer," he said, "but such training as I 
had at home would never have brought it out." 

His ambitions resented failure in any effort of his 
life. He saw, when he was thirteen, that there was no 
future for him in farming ; and when he became a great 
National figure, he confessed the secret of his 
entire neglect to pursue his father's career as a 
farmer. "The moral of my own experience," he said, 
"is that our fathers' sons escape from their fathers' call- 
ing whenever they can, because it is made a mindless, 
monotonous drudgery instead of an ennobling, liberal- 
izing, intellectual pursuit." Long afterwards it became 



HORACE GREELEY 61 

so and Horace Greeley admitted the improvement, but 
in 1825 or thereabouts it was a life he wanted to escape 
from, and did. 

He had devoured newspapers in boyhood and there- 
fore, as he approached manhood, his natural ambition 
was to enter a printing office, to become a journalist, 
an editor, a publisher. The beginning of his actual 
career happened when he was thirteen years old and 
was apprenticed to the printing office of the Northern 
Spectator, a small country newspaper published in 
East Poultney^ Vermont. 

The separation from his home this involved was diffi- 
cult for him. Up to the last he maintained a stolid 
air of indifference, but the morning he stood in front 
of the old farmhouse to bid his parents and his broth- 
ers and sisters good-b}', he was tempted not to go. 
During the long walk to East Poultney, eleven miles, 
he had to force himself not to turn back. This was 
the boy's first great trial and he was thankful, in after 
3'ears, that he kept going straigh-t ahead, once he had 
started. 

Horace Greeley never considered the books he read 
when a boy as the foundation of his success. His ad- 
vice to the young generation of his own period was 
this : 

"To the youth who asks, 'How shall I obtain an edu- 
cation V I would answer, T^earn a trade of a good mas- 
ter.' " He never favored a college course for boys. 

At the end of this four years' apprenticeship he went 
to visit his parents who had moved to a new farm which 
his father had bought in Erie County, Pennsylvania. 



62 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

He liad come to East Poultney a youthful but confirmed 
politician of that period when John Quincy Adams was 
President ; Calhoun, Vice-President ; and Henry Clay, 
Secretary of State. He left it with a greater ambition 
for himself, a definite determination that New York 
was the only place where he could begin such a career. 
He was in his twentieth year. As a tribute of the re- 
spect and affection in which he was held by his associates 
in East Poultney, as he stood on the porch of the little 
house where he had boarded so long, he was presented 
with a cast-off brown overcoat (the first overcoat he ever 
owned) and a pocket Bible. 

In manhood Horace Greeley regretted that railroads 
had ''killed pedestrianism." He himself could walk 
all day, and found it conducive to meditation. His 
father could cover over fifty miles a day, and Horace 
himself recalled with pride that he had once walked 
forty miles at a stretch. Walking was a necessity ol 
the times when he was young. He often spoke of walk- 
ing as one of the "cheap and healthful luxuries of 
life." He never approved of camping parties but ad- 
vised solitary ramblings in the country. A two-or- 
three-hundred-mile walk in the calm, clear air of Oc- 
tober, alone, was one of Horace Greeley's favorite means 
to health. "Swing your pack and step off entirely 
alone," he advised. 

From his father's home in Erie County, Pennsyl- 
vania, he went straight to Kew York. He had a total 
capital of ten dollars, a stick, and a few clothes wrapped 
in a red bandanna handkerchief hanging from it. He 
himself estimated that he was worth, clothes and all, 



HORACE GREELEY 63 

about eleven dollars. He knew no one, had no friends, 
and he wasi in New York with personal appearances 
much against him. 

His first plan, of course, was to find a place to live. 
He had landed at the Battery and walking uptown 
he saw, at the corner of Broad Street and Wall Street, 
a tavern. He entered the barroom and asked the 
price of board. 

"I guess we're too high for you," said the barkeeper, 
giving Horace a brief glance. 

"Well, how much a week do you charge ?" asked the 
odd figure in the little, whining voice peculiar to 
him. 

"Six dollars," was the reply. 

"Yes, that's more than I can afford," and Horace 
laughed meekly at the temerity of his mistake. He 
finally found a boarding house on the water front of 
the North River near Washington Market, run by an 
Irishman, M'Gorlick. For a week he visited the prin- 
ters and newspaper pWnting shops without success. On 
Sunday he heard from a fellow boarder of a job at West's 
pressroom at 85 Chatham Street. Horace was on the 
front steps at 5.30 Monday morning. About 6.30 he 
was joined on the steps by one of the workmen who, 
being a Vermonter, agreed to help Horace. In the 
printing shop, while waiting for the foreman, Horace 
Greeley's appearance excited much laughter and satir- 
ical comment, but he seemed indifferent to it all. 
Finally he was put to work. About an hour later, 
Mr. West, the boss, came in and spied the strange, 
grotesque figure at once. 



64 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Did you hire that fool ?" he asked the foreman. 

"Yes, he's the best I could get," replied the fore- 
man. 

"Well," said the boss, "for God's sake pay him off to- 
night and let him go." 

His work was so good that at the end of the day 
they were glad to retain him, and for months he worked 
on the Testament. In this office he was nicknamed the 
"Ghost." However, he could talk and work at the 
typecase too, and the others soon found that he was 
better informed than they were and listened to him 
with respect. It was during his employment in Chat- 
ham Street that Horace bought his first store clothes 
from a secondhand shop and gave his fellow work- 
men a treat to see him in black broadcloth and a 
beaver hat, both of which faded and crmnpled in two 
weeks. 

His acquaintance with the New Yorker of the '20s 
was of great use to him later, for he moved into a board- 
ing house on the corner of Duane and Chatham Streets 
and there met some youths who got him into the extrav- 
agant habit of dining out in a restaurant on Sunday, 
a novelty in those days. Dining downtown was a new 
institution. Horace Greeley and his friends patronized 
a place called the "Sixpenny Dining Saloon," on Beek- 
man Street, a place much talked of in 1831. After 
attending the Universalist Church on Orchard Street, 
Horace and his friends dined downtown. The cost of 
the dinner was one shilling. 

So Horace Greeley began humbly his great career 
in New York. He never overcame a certain awkward- 



HORACE GREELEY 65 

ness of figure, a gaunt pallor, a timidity of maimer 
that made most people undervalue his power. 

On New Year's Day, 1832, after doing odd jobs in 
various printing offices, he secured employment in the 
attic ofiice where William T. Porter printed The Spirit 
of the Times. On May 5 appeared the first article 
written by Greeley to be published in New York, 
under the nom de plume of "Timothy Wiggins." The 
outstanding characteristics of Horace Greeley as a 
printer were industry, fearlessness of opinion, and in- 
dependence of feeling. Thefee were the dominant fea- 
tures of the Neiv YorJc Tribune which he later founded. 
This was not his first editorial venture, however. 

In partnership with Francis Story, a printer, with 
a total capital of less than $150, Horace Greeley pub- 
lished the first cheap-priced daily newspaper in America 
— The Post. It was intended to be a penny paper, 
but sold for more. It made its appearance from 
the little publishing office at 54 Liberty Street on 
January 1st, 1833, in a snowstorm that developed into 
a blizzard and crippled the enthusiasm of the boys who 
had been trained to be the first newsboys in Ameri- 
can history. It was too cold to carry The Post 
around, and it made only a slight impression although 
over a hundred subscribers w^ere served. The venture 
proved a failure, as Greeley predicted it would be, in- 
sisting that the only possible price to charge for a 
daily newspaper was two cents. 

Before he was twenty-five years old, Horace Greeley 
issued The New Yorker which he himself described 
as "a large, fair, and cheap weekly folio, devoted 



66 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

mainly to current literature^ but giving weekly a digest 
of news and political intelligence." In seven years 
the young editor increased the circulation from a, dozen 
subscribers to nine thousand. 

Two years after its first publication, Horace Greeley 
married and a year later, 1837, practically bankrupt 
by the commercial slump of that year, he went through a 
period of torment. 

"I would rather be a convict in a State prison, a 
slave in a rice-swamp, than to pass through life under 
the horror of debt," he wrote^ remembering this period 
of depression. 

It was in this year that Martin Van Buren was in- 
augurated President. Greeley's work as editor of 
The New Yorker had brought him into political life 
and he was offered a nomination in the City Assembly 
but declined it. By degrees, however, the name of 
Horace Greeley became famous as a man- of individual 
courage and sound views of National liberty. After 
fifteen years of valuable experience in making news- 
papers he issued the monument to his intellectual su- 
premacy, which -still sui*vives long after him — the 
New Yorh Trihune. He was proud of the association 
with him in the Trihune of Henry J. Raymond, who 
accepted his offer to hire him "at eight dollars a week," 
until he could do better. 

Greeley was a man who refused to compromise his 
views. He has confessed his impulsive shifting of con- 
victions by stating that it never interfered with the suc- 
cess of the newspaper. 

At the end of his life he summed it up in the clear. 



HORACE GREELEY 67 

exact, fearless vision that he demonstrated even as a boy. 

"Fame is vapor, popularity an accident, riches take 
wings ; the only earthly certainty is oblivion ; . . . and 
yet I cherish the hope that the journal I projected yes- 
terday will live and flourish long after I shall have 
mouldered. ..." 

Greeley's political life was stormy. He served three 
months in Congress, was nominated for President, and 
defeated. His opposition to slavery in the brilliant 
editorial conduct of the Tribune was in support of 
President Lincoln. He was a protectionist, which, he 
admitted towards the end .of his life, was one of his 
ideals in boyhood. 

"From early boyhood I sat at the feet of champions 
of this doctrine," he said. 

His attitude towards the great political and Na- 
tional issues that confronted him in later life was dis- 
passionate. This analytical habit of mind was estab- 
lished in childhood, for he says, discussing his political 
convictions, "The arguments which combated (protec- 
tion) seemed to me far stronger than those they ad- 
vanced." 

Horace Greeley's advice to the ambitious young man 
becomes a suitable, if brief, lesson of his own hard 
experience. 

"The best business you can go into," he said, "you 
will find on your father's farm or in his workshop. If 
you have no family or friends to aid you, and no pros- 
pect open to you there. Go West^ and then build up 
a home and fortune. But dream not of getting sud- 
denly rich by speculation, rapidly by trade, or anyhow 



68 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

by a profession. . . . Above all be neither afraid nor 
ashamed of honest industry, and if you catch yourself 
fancying anything more respectable than this, be 
ashamed of it to the last day of your life." 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 

(1811-1879) 

THE SILVER-TONGUED ABOLITIONIST 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 

(1811-1879) 

THE SILVER-TONGUED ABOLITIONIST 

A TALL, athletic, aristocratic youth was comfort- 
ably sprawled out ou a sofa, reading. It was 
early in October. His study- window was open 
but the usual noises of the street did not disturb him. 
To have looked at him then, no one would have sus- 
pected that he was contemplating a life of saeriiice, of 
danger, of heroic devotion in support of the negro race. 
Every one who counted for anything in Boston, in those 
remarkably brilliant days of its intellectual awakening, 
knew this young man. lie was extremely good looking, 
always dressed in the best of style, and being intelligent, 
well informed above the average, held a popular and 
leading position among the younger set "on the Hill," 
in Boston. His father had Ikhmi the first Mayor of 
Boston, and he himself had biHMi graduated from Har- 
vard, and was making a start as a lawy(>r. 

The house in which he was born, on the corner of 
Beacon and Walnut Streets, was one of the mansions of 
that period. 

In 1834, when Boston was not such a big city, the 

streets were probably less noisy than they are now, 

and tht> traffic, being entirely by horse-driven vehicles, 

may not have been as loud as the confused blare of auto- 

71 



72 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

mobile whistles and horns one has become accustomed 
to to-day. At any rate, there was nothing which dis- 
tracted this young man from the book he was reading. 
If he knew that a meeting of kind and courageous 
ladies was to be held that afternoon in a hired hall to 
pass resolutions of sympathy lamenting the abuses of 
slavery, it had escaped his mind. He was not pro- 
foundly interested in the tragic fate of the negro 
slaves at that time. No one suspected that he had 
anything but the usual impressions of his class, that 
slavery was an inherited condition of the times, that 
no gentleman of the ISTorthern or Southern States could 
question the right of any man to buy and sell negro 
slaves. The Government had indorsed this right to its 
citizens! There was a severe penalty in case a negro 
slave escaped and was assisted in doing so by any other 
slave-owner or by any other man at all. A few peo- 
ple had dared, in the face of public opinion against 
them, to express their views against what they consid- 
ered an uncivilized system but those people were not 
in the majority. It was a dangerous thing, in fact, 
to talk anti-slavery arguments anywhere in Boston, any- 
where in America, in 1834. If this fortunate young 
scion of a Beacon Street family had any such notions 
about the injustice of slavery as an institution, he had 
shown no signs of them among his friends or his college 
mates. In fact the whole tendency of any Harvard 
graduate, at that time, was to accept slavery as a fixed 
law of the land. 

Suddenly, there was an unusual noise in the street. 
The roar of men's angry voices, the scuffling of feet, the 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 73 

crash of glass, and a few words spoken louder than the 
rest sounded as if some one in authority were trying 
to tell the noisy crowd to be calm. He couldn't see 
what was going on from the window so he hurried out 
to find out what all the row was about. 

What he saw stirred his fighting blood, of which he 
had a generous store. A crowd had seized a man and 
was pushing and mauling and beating him with sticks, 
kicking him, with no apparent certainty of direction. 
Judging by a rope they had thrown over his neck^ they 
intended to hang him. While the narrow street be- 
came more and more choked with the gathering crowd, 
he noticed that many of them were acquaintances and 
friends. It was not a mob of roughs, it was made up 
of men, young and old, socially well known. He gath- 
ered from the disjointed shouts, the names they were 
hurling at the unfortunate man, that he was an aboli- 
tionist, an anti-slavery speaker. He realized at once, 
too, that he must be no ordinary street agitator to at- 
tract this crowd of Boston gentlemen against him. He 
saw the Mayor himself trying with gesture to stop 
the progress of the crowd, but he did not hear him au- 
thoritatively order it to disperse. His chief impres- 
sion was that this disorderly conduct in the streets of 
Boston, whatever the cause, was an unseemly incident. 
There must have been a thousand men, wearing expen- 
sive broadcloth, in that angry mob. 

"What's the man's name ?" he asked. 

"Garrison, the dirty abolitionist ; hanging is too good 
for him," was the reply. 

He knew who William Lloyd Garrison was, had read 



74 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

copies of his famous emancipation journal, The Lib- 
erator, knew that in the South it was denied the mails. 
Joining the mob, pushing his way with them towards 
the City Hall, his resentment at the odds against one 
man broke forth. With great indignation he pushed 
his way to the side of the Mayor, ]\Ir. Lyman, whom he 
saw was doing nothing to command order; and spying 
the Colonel of his militia regiment, the Suffolks, he said 
to him : 

"Colonel, why don't you call out the guards? Let's 
offer our services to the Mayor, to restore order." 

"Don't be a fool," said the Colonel. "Look around 
you. The whole regiment is here, but not in uni- 
form!" 

The young man, heretofore absorbed in Greek and 
Latin, in history and classics, in eulogies of brave men 
of heroic martyrs, suddenly realized that here was a 
tragedy as horrible, an injustice as flagrant, as any he 
had read of in his studies. 

The outrage against a defenseless man was upper- 
most in his mind, at first, and then as his keenly trained 
intelligence sifted the cause, penetrated the underly- 
ing reasons of such mob violence, he pledged himself 
to the great issues of anti-slavery^ as in a far loss vigor- 
ous way his old friend and classmate, Charles Sumner, 
did later in the Senate; that which the martyr of the 
Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, finally achieved in his 
Emancipation Act. 

This incident was the begimiing in history of Wendell 
Phillips, who, when lie was a young man, at twenty- 
four years of age, could find no greater purpose in 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 75 

life than to convert his fellow-men to his own deep, pas- 
sionate, unswerving acknowledgment that all men are 
free and equal. 

At college he had given indications in debate of ex- 
ceptional gifts in pnblic speaking, which were com- 
mended in him. It was expected that this talent would 
go far in making his success in the courts. No one ap- 
parently had any suspicion that deep in the character 
of this fashionable young man of wealth and genius 
there lay the elements of a reformer. His training at 
home had been Spartan, in the sense that every one in 
the household had been brought up to the Puritan gos- 
pel of mutual aid and divison of labor. Equality had 
been the ambition of the Colonials, and it had become 
the gospel of the Constitution. The assault on Garrison 
in the streets of Boston was the beginning of what was 
termed the "revolutionary" impulses of Wendell Phil- 
lips. It has been said there was a still deeper influence 
which came almost simultaneously into his life, the in- 
fluence which, inspired by romance and love, fastened 
him irredeemably to the career he adopted. This was 
his meeting with Anne Terry Oreene, the daughter 
of a wealthy shipping merchant of Boston, whom he 
married. She, too, was at heart an abolitionist, and 
after her marriage she became an ardent friend of all 
anti-slavery movements and a philanthropic aid to 
Lloyd Garrison in his purposes. Charles Sumner was 
to have gone with Phillips when he met Miss Greene 
for the first time, to escort her and a girl friend on a 
stagecoach party. Young Sumner had been invited to 
occupy the attention of the friend, while Phillips 



7G FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

devoted his to his future wife. Sumner didn't go, be- 
cause of a snowstorm. "I wouldn't go for a stage ride 
with any woman on a day like this," he said, and went 
back to bed. Phillips, however, was not so easily di- 
verted from a plan he had made. He had been warned 
that she was "the cleverest, loveliest, most brilliant 
young woman" he could want to know, and that he must 
guard himself against being "talked into the ^sin of ab- 
olition/ before suspecting what she was about." 

They were married when Phillips was twenty-six, in 
the critical year of his life when he delivered his first 
public speech in Faneuil Hall in Boston. He always 
said after they were married, "My wife made an out- 
and-out abolitionist of me ; and she always preceded 
me in the adoption of the various courses I have ad- 
vocated." In fact it was a condition of her acceptance 
of the young man, that he should be the friend of anti- 
slavery. It was a risk to put such a condition to Wen- 
dell Phillips, or to any of the young men in his own set, 
but he pledged himself to the conversion, for he 
confessed in later years that he held up his hand and 
declared to her in the nature of an oath^ "My life shall 
attest the sincerity of my conversion." 

It was during his engagement that he met Garrison. 
They were perhaps the two foremost influences, prior 
to the Civil War, in urging the freedom of the slaves. 
Garrison had compelling attractions for Phillips. 
He admired the courage with which this man had 
fought his way up without education, money, or friends ; 
whereas he himself had been fortunate in possessing all 
these requirements of a leader. 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 77 

"Wendell Phillips saw also, of course, that he was 
hazarding all these social values in his own life. His 
fortune and his friends, that had made life so full of 
promise and success to him, must he sacrificed. The 
strength of character which ultimately made of him one 
of the great emancipators of the negro was due to his 
faith in divine providence and his profound attachment 
to his wife. Por many years, from shortly after their 
marriage, Mrs. Phillips was an invalid, confined to her 
room, and during that time he grew old in sacrifices of 
service and attention. It is said she never grew old but 
retained the charm and impulses of her girlhood through 
trying years of illness. 

Having cast aside his worldly career, in the open 
avowal of his pledge to the cause of anti-slavery, Wen- 
dell Phillips found himself compelled to exert all the 
natural powers of eloquence and the fighting powers of 
courage to overcome the hatred and mob violence that 
menaced his life as an abolitionist. He consecrated 
himself to the cause much earlier in life than Sumner 
did, and with greater fearlessness of action. His ideal- 
ism was not merely a matter of fine dreams, it was the 
active, dangerous occupation of facing angry, vicious 
mobs and controlling them with the skill of oratory, the 
gift of voice and gesture. Wendell Phillips might have 
made a great actor. As a child he used to play at pre- 
tending he was one, dressed up in clothes found in the 
attic, giving performances with his playmates to the 
ambient air. His father once found him expounding a 
sermon, standing on a chair and talking to the empty 
chairs in front of him. 



78 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Isn't that rather hard on you ?" his father asked 
him, amused. 

"1^0^ but it's rather hard on the chairs," said the 
child whimsically. 

His first plunge from the safety of his previous life 
in Boston into the turbulent current of what his friends 
regarded as the "dirty water of abolition" was made in 
a speech at a meeting of the much threatened, often 
abused Anti-Slavery Society held in Lynn, Mass. It 
was only a few months before his marriage. He was 
immediately recognized as a great acquisition to the 
cause and acclaimed as an orator. 

A year later he found himself standing in the crowd 
at Faneuil Hall, during a Nation's meeting of the aboli- 
tionists. Already penal legislation had been urged, 
with the punishment of hanging for agitators of anti- 
slavery. There were other great men, however, who, in 
the interest of maintaining a spirit of universal free- 
dom in the country, appeared on the platform at these 
meetings. Dr. Channing was one of these and spoke. 
The preliminary addresses were approaching resolu- 
tions condemning mob organizations in the streets when 
James T. Austin, the Attorney-General of State, 
jumped up and from his place in the gallery attacked 
the motives of the meeting and so successfully stirred 
the opposition in the hall that a mob outbreak was 
imminent. 

Phillips, standing with the crowd, said that some 
one ought to answer the Attorney-General, and he him- 
self was urged to do it by a man near him. 

"I will, if you will help me to the platform," he re- 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 79 

plied. But he didn't reach it. He stood up on a 
stool and began at once to speak without introduction. 
An effort was made to stop him but he stood his 
ground, appealing to the sense of justice and fair-play. 
Without time to consider what he should say in reply 
to an unexpected attack, he completely reversed the 
stampede intended for that meeting and restored the 
better sense of the crowd. It was a great triumph of 
oratory and self-command, which happened frequently 
in the public campaign Wendell Phillips led so many 
years. It was the comments in the prcss^ the sensa- 
tional arguments this speech aroused, that notified his 
former friends in Boston that he had chosen a career of 
dangerous agitation and reform. 

These meetings, held in winter, were warmed only 
by the heated eloquence of the speakers, as the follow- 
ing reporter's note, published at that time, reveals: 

^WHien it is considered that the reporter was taking 
notes in a room without fire or seats, and that the 
thermometer was below zero, that his paper was full, 
and all pencils he could borrow used up, he humbly 
begs to be forgiven for the remainder of the remarks," 
— made after the sixth speaker had been heard. 

In his speeches, which were always extemporaneous, 
Wendell Phillips had extraordinary magnetic power 
over the mob spirit. Once when he was facing an infu- 
riated mob, in New York, one of the leaders cut a cur- 
tain rope and shouted that they would hang him. 

"Oh ! wait a minute," said Phillips, smiling, "till I 
tell you this story." 

His bravery was supremely heroic. General Miles 



80 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

was once asked what was the bravest thing he ever saw. 
The general replied that it was the speech delivered by 
Wendell Phillips in the Boston Music Hall, to a mob 
of two thousand people howling for his blood. At the 
end of the speech Wendell Phillips left the hall, unmo- 
lested, and went home. 

The best years of his life were given to the cause 
of unconditional abolition. He was a preacher, a cru- 
sader against a ISTational evil, a young man who dared 
anything to stir the torpid indifference of Americans 
to the monstrous features of slavery. By unrestrained 
speech he aroused the people, at the risk of his own life. 
His gift was that of an orator, his eloquence that of 
an inspired reformer. While he saw that his country 
declared for freedom, he also saw that there were in- 
justice, inhumanity, National inconsistencies. 

Wendell Phillips was the organizer of the Boston 
Anti-Slavery Society. He opposed the annexation of 
Texas; he openly deplored Kossuth's silence about 
slavery; he opened the public schools to colored chil- 
dren; he defended John Brown at Harpers Ferry; he 
recommended "ballots instead of bullets," in anti- 
slavery conflict ; he supported Lincoln — in fact, he 
created public opinion all his life. He declined several 
offers to run for Congress in later years, but contin- 
ued, a friendly, benevolent, and philanthropic man, to 
criticise National issues and famous men to the last. 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

(1822-1909) 

PREACHER, ORGANIZER, AND 
AUTHOR 




From " The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, 
llale. Jr., published by Little, Brown & Company 

EDWARD EVERETT HALE 



Edward Everett 




EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

(1822-1909) 

PEEACHEB, ORGANIZER, AND 
AUTHOR 

AS Edward gone to school?" asked Mr. Nathan 
Hale, his father, one morning in November in 
the year 1827. 

''Goodness, yes, — why do you ask ?" said his mother, 
looking very prim, and slender, and sweet in her simple 
Quaker gray dress. 

"Nothing. Only Edward seems to be growing pretty 
fast, haven't you noticed ?" his father said as he smiled. 

"Edward's a little like me, I think," said his mother. 

"Yes, it must be so. What the boy said to me yes- 
terday was certainly not like me. He'll never make a 
teacher." 

"What was it he said ?" the mother asked. 

"Well, when I asked him how his school was getting 
along, he looked up at me in that way he has, and he 
said, 'Well, Father, I may as well tell you first as last, 
that school is a bore.' I remonstrated with him; told 
him that was not the way to feel about an education, 
and he said, 'Oh ! I don't hate school so much, I just 
dislike it, it's a necessary nuisance.' " 

Edward's mother laughed a little as she went back 
into the kitchen, while her husband put on his hat and 

83 



84 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

started for the office of the Boston Daily Advertiser, 
which he owned. 

Edward was then about six years old and his ideas 
about education at that age may not be important, but, 
since he became one of the great writers and preachers 
of the world, it is evident that his character developed 
early in his life. Never, when he grew up, and years 
and years afterwards recalled his school days, did he 
alter his opinion of school. 

"I disliked it, as I disliked all schools," he said, "but 
here again I regarded the whole arrangement as one of 
those necessary nuisances which society imposed on the 
individual, and which the individual would be foolish 
to quarrel with when he didn't have it in his power 
to abolish it." 

Strangely enough, he never thought that those ten or 
twelve years he spent going to school did him much 
good. He acknowledged only one advantage, and that 
was what he learned in declamation. He hated to re- 
cite in class, as many boys do, and he never got a good 
mark for public speaking in school or college, but he ad- 
mitted that was the most useful thing he learned. 

"The exercise of declamation," he wrote in after 
years, "did what it was meant to do, that is, it taught 
us not to be afraid of an audience." 

He was a boy in advance of his years, for he entered 
Harvard at the age of thirteen. But education at school 
and college was not the chief value that Edward Everett 
Hale cherished most of all in his memory. The broad, 
big-hearted sympathy with every human phase of life 
was fastened on him by the atmosphere of his home. 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 85 

His father and mother had very much the same impres- 
sions as he had of schools and colleges, and they made 
every effort to allow every one in the family the utmost 
freedom of opinion. It was a home where every one had 
an equal right with the other, and this fine strength of 
individual liberty of thought and action made the home 
a natural center and refuge. It was the real center of 
the boy's character which later became the distinguished 
force it will always be in the history of I^ew England. 
There were many children, eight in all, and they all 
lived their own lives in that delightful home in Boston. 
They were not petted, or scolded, or argued with, but 
encouraged to occupy themselves just as they wished. 
They were especially urged to bring their friends home 
with them. Playthings were not put in the nursery, but 
Edward, having a mechanical turn of mind, when he 
was a boy was given materials from which he could 
manufacture toy locomotives. There were all sorts of 
materials prepared for boys at that time, with which 
they could build things for themselves. With his elder 
brother Nathan, he was fond of making experiments in 
chemistry, following such formulas as were given them 
in juvenile magazines. Best of all, however, they liked 
to go to their father's printing office and learn to set 
type. Kathan, being the older boy, was the leader. 
Like Robinson Crusoe, he was always in search of cur- 
ious adventure, and Edward was inseparable from him 
as Crusoe's good man, Friday. Then there were church 
and Sunday School on Sunday. In those days, in Bos- 
ton, at least, children were expected to learn a great deal 
about the Scriptures. It was a serious study. 



86 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Fully one lialf of the important instruction whicii I 
now have with regard to the Scriptural history of man- 
kind was acquired in the Brattle Street Sunday School, 
before I was thirteen/' wrote Edward Everett Hale after 
he became a minister himself. 

Besides church and house gatherings, there was danc- 
ing school, which led to evening parties when the chil- 
dren grew old enough to stay up later than nine o'clock. 
And there were lectures to go to in the evening, as 
popular in Boston then in 1830 as the movies are now. 

Literary ambitions were uppermost in Edward's mind 
as a boy, and he did a great deal of writing then in 
blank-books carefully ruled so that the writing would 
> keep on straight lines. His father being the publisher 
and editor of the Daily Advertiser, the boys drifted 
naturally into a fancy for journalism and a knowledge 
of the printing business. The boys could set type in 
their teens. They wrote and printed books and a news- 
paper for themselves. They even started a library of 
their own books, which they called the Franklin Circu- 
lating Library, The books were very small, really only 
booklets three or four inches square. These books con- 
tained versions of fairy stories. Edward published in 
this way a poem about "Jack and the Beanstalk" writ- 
ten for him by his mother. One of the home news- 
papers, a little sheet only four by four inches, was called 
The Fly. 

He entered Harvard at thirteen because his father be- 
lieved in going to college as soon as possible. Both the 
boy's uncles having gone to Harvard when they were 
younger, Edward was merely fulfilling the traditions of 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 87 

his family. Also, his older brother, to whom he was 
deeply attached, had been in Harvard a year and Ed- 
ward missed him very much. In college, the brothers 
occujDied the same room. This separated him from his 
Ereshman classmates, because he lived with a Sopho- 
more. He was not happy at Harvard, however". 

"I am always counting the weeks to vacation," he 
wrote later, "the first four weeks always seemed to me 
interminable." 

His first day at college was one of "deadly homesick- 
ness." Still he learned his classics and modern lan- 
guages at Harvard, which stayed with him through his 
long life. He was a good cricket player and in winter 
was always getting up sleighing parties. He made some 
mark at Harvard in literature, being the class poet at 
his graduation, and was graduated second on the list. 
Of this poem he wrote in his diary, immediately after 
it was finished : 

^'It has convinced me of what I knew perfectly well 
before, that I am not, nor ever was, a poet or have I ever 
had the least claim to the title." Still, the literary side 
of the man was always predominant. It came chiefly 
from his mother, whose brother, Alexander Everett, was 
editor of the North Americayi Bevieiv. 

After his graduation Edward began his studies for the 
ministry, at the request of his mother, and lived in the 
old home in Boston, a place frequented by the younger 
literary men of the time, notably James Russell Lowell, 
who had been graduated from Harvard a year before. 

Economy of time became a habit. He found that he 
had begun many books that he never finished, so he made 



88 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

a rule never to allow himself more than five books to 
read at a time. He divided them into "Professional, 2 ; 
— Informative, 1 ; — Languages, 1 ; — Light reading, 
1." He tried hard to maintain this schedule but it was 
often interrupted, 

"It seems melancholy to think how my time is an- 
nihilated by those abominable diversions called evening 
parties," he writes in his diary. 

He spent his evenings conscientiously reading and re- 
sented the interference of society. Yet his was one of 
the representative families, the bluest of blue blood. 
His uncle, his mother's brother, after being Governor of 
Massachusetts, was American Minister to England. 

Six or seven years followed the graduation from Har- 
vard, with no other progress towards the ministry than 
reading much, traveling, and ample leisure for concerts 
and dances. And yet, l^ew England during this time 
was stirred up by the new theories of Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, which came into being in America at the same 
time as the doctrines of Carlyle and Goethe. These in- 
tellectual events young Hale viewed without interest, and 
Emerson he did not like at all. He said after hearing 
Emerson the first time, "It was not very good but very 
transcendental." Later he wrote in his diary, "Mr. Em- 
erson's stock of startling phrases concerning soul, mind, 
etc., is getting exhausted, and I think his reputation 
will fall accordingly." 

In everything young Hale read, after he left college, 
he always kept in view certain definite impressions he 
had formed on religion. Though it was his purpose 
eventually to be a minister, these years immediately 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 89 

after college were spent in absorbing all kinds of liter- 
ature rather than in reading up for a special denom- 
ination of religious feeling. He kept a diary which 
faithfully shows the practical strain of his mind. 
There is less record of what he did or thought than there 
is of what books he read and lectures he heard. His 
opinions, which are criticisms, reveal that he read with 
a keen sight on the value of the matter rather than on 
the fame of the author. His interest in politics was 
chiefly the reflection of his father's impressions, who, 
being the editor of the Daily Advertiser, was naturally 
occupied with them. Of course, during these "reading 
years," he wrote articles for his father's newspaper, 
chiefly descriptions of trips he made. His father being 
President of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, travel- 
ing was possible on passes. Theology, however, oc- 
cupied most of his thoughts. 

When he was away from home he made it a rule to 
write his mother a letter every other day. 

"I am fond of laying down a rule of one letter every 
other day to the family wanderers when I am at home," 
he wrote his mother once. 

The Divinity School, of which he knew something, did 
not please him. He objected to what he called the 
"divinity drawl," a manner of delivery in preaching 
which did not come up to his conceptions of the ideal in 
preaching. 

On his nineteenth birthday he writes in his diary this 
unusual sununing up of his own character : 

"I am nineteen years old, and all day I have been 
thinking more of the future than I often do. Another 



90 FAMOUS LEADEES OF CHARACTER 

year I shall have begun to devote myself to my profes- 
sion, a profession the proper preparation for which I 
think no one understands — I am sure I do not myself, 
I shall be obliged to take the responsibility of preparing 
myself for its solemn duties very much in my own way. 
. . . God made me^ I believe, to be happy, and placed 
me here that my powers might be developed and im- 
proved and so fitted for a superior state of existence. 
As for ambition I have less and less of the school-boy 
stamp of it every day that I live." 

The following year he preached his first sermon in a 
church in Newark, ]^. J. His mother, writing of the 
event, said: 

"I feel as if there were something appalling almost 
in one so young — twenty years — who was but the 
other day an infant in my arms, standing forth in such 
a position." 

Writing about his experiences himself he said, ''I am 
satisfied that I embarked on the profession too young, 
. . . for I feel younger and younger^ less and less ex- 
perienced every day that I preach." 

Gradually specific influences moulded the course of 
his character. After being impressed by a sermon he 
heard, he decided, 'Tor myself then — I must set up 
the study of Christ. For my action in the world I start 
on this; that the world can and shall be made less 
selfish." 

He kept this resolution, developing it to the highest 
force in his character. 

"One does make a mistake in working too much for 
the future," he said. ''Use time as holy time ; but not 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 91 

on the immense scale of beginning a series of operations 
worth less than nothing if no to-morrow or no next 
year comes from their completion." 

He became pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wor- 
cester, Massachusetts, when he was twenty-four, and 
there he developed the religious laws of his requirements 
as a minister. These were the direct outcome of his 
broad, practical, sympathetic character. When he had 
spent ten years in Worcester he was called to the South 
Congregational Church in Boston where he remained 
till he died. 

Edward Everett Hale's supreme claim to the memory 
of succeeding generations is the application of his char- 
acter to the service of others. He organized his church 
as a social factor, and was concerned not merely with 
the people of his congregation, but with every one with 
whom they came in contact. He was not satisfied with 
merely giving the members of his congregation spiritual 
counsel on Sundays, he had a personal guiding interest 
in the activities of their lives. He established a repu- 
tation of helpfulness outside his church as well. He 
was always accessible to assist strangers in Boston who 
had no social standing to bring to the community, 
whether it consisted of getting work for them so that they 
could live or giving them such associations as would 
make their lives happier. Although he was himself an 
individualist, he fully recognized that life was a thing 
we all must share in common. His industry, his syste- 
matic array of notebooks containing complete records 
of his church organizations and the people in them, in 
themselves representing an immense labor, were merely 



92 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

the ordinary run of his duties as a minister. Besides 
his sermons, he was a prolific author of poetry, short 
stories^ essays, and magazine articles of all sorts. His 
charity was a ceaseless drain on his strength also. Such 
items as this reveal Mr. Hale's character : 

"George Brown comes out of prison next Monday. I 
have promised to meet him there and see him to his 
home." 

All his work was a personal application of his own 
judgment and sympathy towards people, rather than 
the institutional character of church work. Without 
knowing it he exerted an individual power, believing he 
was leading others to accomplish that which his own per- 
sonality alone achieved. His energy was nothing less 
than the bubbling enthusiasm in life, and people, and 
books, that never deserted him. 

After a trip to Europe when he was nearly forty, he 
returned to his church in Boston to find the Civil War 
imminent, with the election of Lincoln. He was an 
abolitionist, an organizer of the Emigrant Aid Society 
of 'Rew England which planned to colonize Kansas free 
lands for slaves. He plunged into the excitement and 
passion of this epoch with great zeal. His name as a 
broad-minded, humane, original-thinking minister had 
spread, and he was in great demand as a speaker and 
writer on the National issues of the war. Out of this 
intensity of feeling came the story that became one of 
the masterpieces of short fiction, "The Man Without 
A Country," which was as great an influence in stirring 
feeling against slavery, as "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This 
story spread the fame of the author both as a writer and 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 93 

as a man of deep convictions which the North supported. 
It was subsequently translated into many languages. 
Magazines, in those days, did not print the author's name 
on stories, so this little classic appeared under the signa- 
ture of Frederick Ingham. He was an all-round man, 
this fellow Ingham ! He wrote many economical and 
political articles. He could write anything a magazine 
wanted, on any subject. The author describes "Ing- 
ham's" work in a private diary : 

"If it were his duty to write verses, he wrote verses ; 
to lay telegraph, he laid telegraph ; to fight slavers, he 
fought slavers ; to preach sermons, he preached sermons ; 
and he did one of these thing with just as much alacrity 
as the other, the moral purpose entirely controlling such 
mental aptness or physical habits as he could bring to 
bear." 

On his seventy-fifth birthday, Edward Everett Hale, 
referring to a toast at a banquet, said of an editor, "He 
pleased me by squarely recognizing the truth that I 
considered literature in itself worthless and that my 
literary work has always had an object." 

That work was enormous. The list of his books 
alone is over 150, and the list of articles, essays, 
sermons, and other literary output has never been com- 
pletely made. In his writing Edward Everett Hale 
developed ideas and then encouraged their application 
to practical events in daily life. His short story, "Ten 
Times One is Ten," contains the principles that were 
the underlying motif of his religious life — the gospel 
pel of brotherhood. He "builded better than he knew," 
when he wrote this story. Its conception was in his 



94 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

mind when he was thirty, though he never wrote it 
till he was nearly sixty. The object of the story was 
to show how one good life could inspire another. It 
led to the spreading of the organization of the "Lend 
a Hand" movement, societies all over the country 
pledged to mutual helpfulness. The religion behind 
these organizations was no more inspiring than the four 
lines which defined its purposes. These were the mot- 
toes of the "Lend a Hand" Clubs : 

"Look up and not down, 
Look forward and not back, 
Look out and not in. 
Lend a hand!" 

The first "Lend a Hand" Club was organized in New 
York among some street boys, to whom Miss Ella E. 
Russell read the story. When other societies grew all 
over the country they wrote to the author of the idea 
for further inspiration. He always advised them this : 

"The less fuss and feathers the better. The idea 
is that such a club should be made up of unselfish peo- 
ple, who meet, not for 'mutual improvement,' but with 
some definite plans for other people." 

This was the purpose of his life. All his lectures, 
his letters when a boy and a young man, his sermons, 
his literature, enlisted that spirit of organizing with 
definite plans to help other people. The "Lend a 
Hand" idea was the crystallization of the spiritual 
identity of Edward Everett Hale, the literary, philan- 
thropic, religious leader of the nineteenth century. It 
made him the pioneer in such outstanding Christian 



EDWARD EVERETT HALE 95 

movements as the Ciiristian Endeavor Society, the Ep- 
worth League, Young People's Religious Union, the 
Girls' Friendly, King's Daughters, and many others. 

Towards the close of his life, he said in a short re- 
view: 

"I have written many books, but I am not an author. 
I am a parish minister. I don't care a snap of my 
finger for the difference between Balzac and Daudet. 
That is not important in my life. I do care about 
the classes of men who migrate to this country." 



LELAND STANFORD 

(1824-1893) 

GREAT PIONEER OF THE WEST 




LELAND STANFORD 

(1824-1893) 

GREAT PIONEER OF THE WEST 

S the years accumulate between the living man 
herewith remembered, who died in 1893, and 
the memories of his life, the chief lesson of that 
life becomes clear — foresight. That is the useful, 
practical lesson to be learned from the career of Leland 
Stanford, To some, he was a financier ; to others, a 
successful promoter; to others, that ever questionable 
human being, a rich man. The deeper qualities of his 
nature, the simplicity, modesty, sincerity and kindness 
which many acts of his life show, are not widely as- 
sociated with his name. In fact there exists no biog- 
raphy of him, doubtless because he himself did not en- 
courage the notion. His memory is reduced to a brief 
sketch in the encyclopedia among men who have left 
a mark that stretches into future generations. 

There are three things he accomplished, in the short 
seventy years of his life, that explain his right to an 
important place in the world's history, particularly in 
American history. 

First — He organized and built the Central Pacific 
Railroad, so completing a connecting thread with the 
Pacific and Atlantic. 

Second — He exerted brilliant and loyal energies as 

99 



100 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Governor of California, in 1861, to sustain Lincoln 
and the Union. 

Third — He built and gave to the country the Leland 
Stanford Jr. University, a gift inspired by the death 
of his son when a boy of fifteen, mingled with a dom- 
inating impulse of his life to contribute something use- 
ful and practical to the world, for the future. 

He was usually building something — for to-morrow. 
What he had accumulated yesterday was only to 
improve that purpose. His impulse was — foresight. 
]^ot a spectacular man, for although he became ex- 
tremely wealthy, and was twice elected to the United 
States Senate, he made no impressive speeches, adorned 
no heroic event. A slow-thinking, deliberate, consci- 
entious, plain sort of man all through, and yet with 
a dynamic force in him that swayed other men. His 
chief sport was horse racing. He owned some famous 
beauties of the track, of his day. A man's man in 
every sense of the word, — and a self-made man in 
the sense that he became one of the "Argonauts" of 
California who accumulated stupendous fortunes in the 
West of the gold-fever period. It was not a sudden 
mining speculation, as it was with so many adventurers 
in the West during that gold excitement, that brought 
him wealth. He didn't strike ore in great quantities 
overnight, as some others did. There were no miracles 
of chance that might add a touch of picturesque 
adventure to his life. Leland Stanford was a man 
of quiet, slow, careful methods, a business man. 
He had an imagination that foresaw many things, and 
he encouraged these visions of the future, but he kept 



LELAND STANFORD 101 

them harnessed to practical, sane uses. His imagina- 
tive faculties were not indulgences, they were the sup- 
ports of his practical plans. 

The character of the man may be the result of boy- 
hood environment, or may not be. There are many 
who claim that the impressionable years of a boy's life 
fasten deep upon the impulses and habits of manhood. 
Leland Stanford was born on a farm in the fertile hills 
of Central New York, about eight miles from Albany. 
The small settlement, — small at that time in 1821 — 
was called Watervliet. He always claimed chiefly 
English ancestry, though there was a decided Irish 
mixture from his father's side of the family. His 
mother was of old Puritan, New England stock closely 
related to the direct descendants of the early "May- 
flower" colonists in Massachusetts. 

Josiah Stanford was an industrious, thrifty, intel- 
ligent man, whose place. Elm Farm, was on the main 
post-road from Albany to Schenectady. It would seem 
as though the farm environment did not wholly absorb 
Josiali Sanford, for he dabbled occasionally in the 
business of a contractor, when it looked like a profit- 
able occupation. In this way he contracted to build 
and did build a portion of the turnpike between Al- 
bany and Schenectady, and built other roads and even 
bridges in the vicinity. Ho, too, had the gift of fore- 
sight, for he was one of the prime movers in the plans, 
just developing at the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, for building the Erie Canal. This was a period 
of considerable enthusiasm and activity in the growth 
of the farm communities of Central New York, for 



102 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAEACTER 

in 1829 the 'New York legislature granted a charter 
for a railroad between Albany and Schenectady and 
Josiah Stanford was one of the principal contractors 
for this road. As a boy, Leland Stanford spent most 
of his spare time watching some of this construction 
work which was close to his father's home. From his 
infancy, almost, the boy was saturated with the business 
of railroads. Most of the men who came to his father's 
house discussed the railroad business. Furthermore, 
it was one of the most vital and inspiring subjects of 
that comparatively early period in railroad develop- 
ment in America. Transportation then was still a 
problem of vast conjecture and prophecy. It stimu- 
lated the imagination of engineers and business men 
so that they dreamed of the vast railroad achievements 
of to-day. Leland Stanford, then a boy, shared the ex- 
citement of these dreams, traveling in imagination with 
them when he heard his fatlier and his friends dis- 
cussing such a wild project as building a railroad as far 
as Oregon. His life on the farm was an active one. 
He was up at five every morning in winter, and four 
in summer, to do those early chores that the 
city lad escapes. He went to the public schools of his 
vicinity till he was twelve years old, and for three years 
he was taught at home. When he was fifteen he 
cleared off a wide sv/eep of timber land which his 
father had contracted for, and with his share of this 
work, the first money ho ever earned, he paid for his 
own tuition at an academy in Clinton, N". Y. The 
chief curiosity of his boyhood was the construction, 
equipment and extension of a railroad. His boyish 



LELAND STANFORD 103 

imagination, when he was only thirteen, eagerly 
grasped the plans to build a railroad as far west as 
Oregon, regarded by many at that time as a wild 
project. 

In after years he recalled especially a long session 
between his father and Mr. Whitney, one of the en- 
gineers of construction of the Mohawk and Hudson 
River Railway, in which the great plan of an over- 
land steam road to Oregon was discussed from all 
points of view. His father stubbornly maintained that 
it could be done, in spite of obvious engineering diffi- 
culties, just as years later in California, Leland Stan- 
ford insisted that the Sierra Nevada Mountains could 
be conquered by railroad transportation. That night 
was the beginning of a dream that materialized many 
years later. 

The first years of Leland Stanford's career were not 
of any brilliant promise. He chose the career of a 
lawyer, and began his studies in the office of Wheaton, 
Doolittle and Hodley, in Albany. At the end of three 
years he was admitted to the bar. Those were the days 
when the slogan of youth was, "Go West, Young Man !" 
and the newly appointed member of the bar promptly 
took this advice. He selected a small town in Wis- 
consin, called Port Washington, where he hung out his 
shingle. Men were enthusiastic about the western 
country in those days, and Port Washington, though 
a community of about 1700 people, was boomed as the 
future great shipping point of the lake region, with 
expectations to rival Milwaukee or Chicago in this re- 
spect. Young Leland Stanford succeeded in this early 



104 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

venture as a practicing lawyer, at the end of the first 
year Laving earned $1200, in those days a pros- 
perous revenue. In fact he indulged himself, on the 
strength of this prosperity, in a trip home to Albany 
in 1850, when ho was just twenty-six years of age. 
Without heralding the intentions of this trip, the young 
man no doubt had returned home with the specific 
plan of winning Jane Lathrop, daughter of Dyer La- 
throp, a merchant of Albany, one of the oldest families 
in that aristocratic Dutch and English settlement. At 
any rate, they were married and he returned with his 
young bride to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where 
they lived for two years. Wliatever the prospects of 
a young lawyer might have been, had Leland Stanford 
remained there he might never have been the man of 
large affairs he became. A kindly fate, in the 
disguise of what seemed a catastrophe, forced him into 
the far West. His office was burned out, with his en- 
tire law library and all papers, documents, and valu- 
able files. It was the total destruction of his first lad- 
der, and he received the first real bump of his young 
life. There was nothing left but to begin again. It 
was about this time that the great discovery of gold in 
California had been made, and the young man decided 
that was the place to which to go. He returned to 
Albany first, where his wife failed to get her father's 
permission to go with her husband into the unsettled 
portions of what was then a wild covmtry, and she 
remained in Albany. The young husband didn't waver 
in his plans, though those who saw in later yeare 
how devoted and single-minded he and his wife were 



LELAND STANFORD 105 

can appreciate the courage it took to leave her for an 
adventure that promised hardship, danger, and a long 
separation. 

His five brothers had preceded him to California, 
and that no doubt partly influenced his decision. 
It took him thirty-eight days from Albany to San 
Francisco,! via steamer to Nicaragua, including twelve 
days crossing the Isthmus. The memory of that te- 
dious, uncomfortable trip no doubt stimulated Mr. 
Stanford's determination to shorten it by building 
the Central Pacific to a point where it joined the Union 
Pacific. He found his brothers conducting a general 
merchandise business in Sacramento, and soon he be- 
gan a mercantile career for himself at Cold Springs, 
Eldorado County. 

He did not plunge into the speculative adventure of 
the prospector for gold. He didn't go out and pan 
dirt with the gambling impulse of the gold digger. He 
was a cautious, far-seeing man, and instead, he opened 
a store at Michigan Blufi^s which was the central busi- 
ness point of the Placer County mining district. It 
was a rough, pioneer mining camp, and here the young 
lawyer endured some of the hardships of that frontier 
life in the '50s, in California. 

In an address delivered forty years later he referred 
to these experiences. 

"The true history of the Argonauts of the nineteenth 
century has to be written. No poet has yet arisen to 
immortalize their achievements in verse. They had 
no Jason to lead them, no oracles to prophesy success, 
nor enchantments to divert danger; but like self- 



106 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

reliant Americans, thej pressed forward to the land of 
promise, and traversed thousands of miles where the 
Greeks heroes traveled hundreds. Thej went by ship 
and by wagon, on horseback and on foot, a mighty 
army, passing over mountains and deserts, enduring 
privations and sickness; they were the creators of a 
commonwealth, the builders of States." 

Among the gifts which Leland Stanford had in- 
herited or acquired was a shrewd business sense, for 
he invested in mining operations, prospered, and in 
three years bought out his brothers in Sacramento and 
immediately went East and returned with his wife to 
Sacramento. Some of his friends have always insisted 
that he was blessed with good luck ; at any rate, he found 
himself in 1855, at the age of thirty-one, firmly estab- 
lished in business in Sacramento on a large scale. Up 
to this time the young man's work had been centered 
on making provisions for a home which he had lost 
in Wisconsin. There came to him, in a very short 
time, a realization that the political may also be a part 
of a man's patriotic obligations, so he became one of 
the first founders of a new party in California, 
the Republican Party, when he was still a young man 
in 1856. He ran for ofiice in the State twice, and 
was twice defeated. In 1860 while a delegate at large 
to the Republican National Convention, he became a 
close friend of Abraham Lincoln, for whose nomination 
he was an influential advocate. These were the trying 
years of strife and civil war, and Lincoln's anxieties 
as to the possibility that California might secede from 
the Union made him value the friendship of Leland 



LELAND STANFORD 107 

Stanford, At the invitation of Lincoln, he remained 
several v^^eeks in Washington after the President's in- 
auguration, and was consulted by him as to the loyalty 
of California to the Union. 

In 1861, after a vigorous campaign, Leland Stan- 
ford w^as elected Governor of California. He was only 
thirty-seven years of age, a youthful Governor, espec- 
ially at a critical period in both State and National 
affairs. He accomplished reforms. He organized the 
militia, abated the evils of squatter claims in the State, 
established a State Normal School and reduced the in- 
debtedness of the State by one half. His services as the 
young War Governor of California alone would en- 
title him to a permanent place in National history. 

The project for constructing the Central Pacific 
Railroad was chiefly an achievement of his boyhood 
dreams, awakened when he listened to his father's ar- 
gument with Mr. Whitney about building a road from 
Albany to Oregon. 

"Never mind," he said to his wife during their 
voyage to California on a rough sea, "a time will come 
when I will build a railroad for you to go home on." 

With what was regarded as a visionary faith in an 
engineer, Theodore D. Judah, who insisted that he 
could build a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Moun- 
tains, Leland Stanford induced his fellow merchants in 
Sacramento to subscribe enough to send this engineer 
to make a preliminary survey. This was the origin, 
the beginning of the Central Pacific. The men who 
started the enterprise were Leland Stanford, Collis P. 
Huntington, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and 



108 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAKACTER 

James Bailej. C. P. Himtington was a hardware 
merchant and he was the first supporter of Leland 
Stanford's plans. These five men brought upon them- 
selves the jibes and jeers of the thoughtless multitude 
for their organization of the Central Pacific. The 
whole project was treated with ridicule and contempt 
bj every man of wealth in California. The five mer- 
chants stood alone, with their comparatively small cap- 
ital pooled and committed to the project. Appeals for 
support to the wealthy men of the State failed entirely. 
It probably would never have been accomplished, and 
the five merchants of Sacramento would have gone 
broke, except for Leland Stanford's success in getting 
an Act of Congress by which Government aid was 
given to the construction of the Central Pacific. It 
was a gigantic task managed by these men of ability 
and courage, which fulfilled Leland Stanford's dream 
as a boy, a transcontinental railroad. The junction with 
the Union Pacific was made in the spring of 1869, 
and every one of the five men who had risked every- 
thing against superhuman odds made a colossal fortune. 

Governor Stanford became the largest landowner in 
California. When he contemplated building the Stan- 
ford University he and his wife visited the president 
of a ISTew England College and asked what amount 
it would require to endow such an institution. 

"About $5,000,000," said the president. 

"Don't you think," said Leland Stanford, turning 
to his wife, "we had better make it ten millions ?' 

He died on his estate, Palo Alto, suddenly, June 
20, 1893. 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. 

(1834 ) 

A GEEAT EDUCATIONAL LEADER 




From " The Happy Life." tiy permission of Thos. Y. Crowell & Co. 
CHARLES \\ ILLL\M ELIOT 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. 

(1834 ) 

A GREAT EDUCATIONAL LEADER 

AN American gentleman is a type that Harvard 
has educated for many years. Many other 
moral forces of character have also developed 
in the long stretch of its impressive influence. Dr. 
Charles William Eliot, President Emeritus, in an ad- 
jdress upon the character of a gentleman, said: 

"In the first place, he will be a quiet person. His 
speech will be gentle and his demeanor quiet. I have 
had many visiting college presidents and teachers say 
to me, 'Where are your students ? I don't hear them 
about the yard. It seems to me this is a very quiet 
campus. It is not much like ours.' Now that is a 
fact. The Harvard Yard is favorably known as the 
quietest college enclosure in the country. If you hear 
a fellow bawling about the yard, you can be perfectly 
sure that he is an outsider or a newcomer. A gentle- 
man is a serene person." 

It was in that Yard that the venerable President 
Emeritus, when he was eight or ten years old, passed 
a great deal of his time. His boyhood was familiar 
with the character of the Yard, for his father, Samuel 
Atkins Eliot, was Treasurer of Harvard College. He 
had been Mayor of Boston, a Representative in Con- 
ill 



112 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

gress, before then. Therefore Dr. Eliot's career was 
obviously the fortunate one of an American gentleman 
who found occupation and habit of thought predestined 
for him at Harvard. 

He was born in 1834, heir to the best social tradi- 
tions, an ancestry that was irreproachable, and natural 
gifts of very promising proportions. As soon as he was 
able to adjust his alphabet into words, he spelled Har- 
vard. It has been the bread and salt of his intellectual 
interests, and more than that, he has strengthened the 
mould of the University graduate with a moral force 
peculiarly his own. 

Dr. Eliot was graduated from Harvard some time 
before the Civil War, but remained near the Yard as 
a tutor and assistant professor of chemistry. He was 
nineteen when he was graduated. When he was only 
thirty-five he was elected President of Harvard. His 
youth for a position of such importance did not enter 
into the discussion of his election at the time. There 
were criticisms of the fact that he was a layman and a 
scientist. He began his long service, over half a cen- 
tury of presiding influence in American education, with 
some radical and useful changes of administration. 
Up to this time he had apparently been so deeply im- 
mersed in the study of chemistry that his career as an 
inventor or scientist seemed assured. 

Dr. Eliot's first progressive move in the National 
program of education was to create more efficient gradu- 
ate schools. He was the leading "champion" of the 
elective system. The requirements of admission to 
Harvard were another progressive feature of Dr. Eliot's 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. 113 

early duties as President of the University, wbicli led 
to wide criticism of his radical tendencies. He made 
so many permanent improvements in our educational 
system that he soon found himself the center of Na- 
tional discussion and interest. He was a professor ap- 
plied to the restless elements of America's growth in 
the seventies, when every one was talking about big 
things. 

One of the distinguished Harvard teachers always 
said in comment upon the future of America, "Yes, 
yes, we must have large things first, size first ; the rest 
will come." Dr. Eliot, however, never neglected the 
smaller details of growth. He was a man of practical 
purpose in all his cultural progress, he did not seek 
to make things "look big just for the pleasure of 
measuring their size." While he sought enthusiasm 
for Harvard standards, he also preserved the conserva- 
tive principles of the quiet American gentleman, "quiet 
for the best of reasons — namely, that effectiveness re- 
quires steady, close attention and that attention implies 
stillness and a mind intent," as he said once. 

He raised the standards of secondary schools and 
introduced an element of choice in the selection of col- 
lege studies. When he became chairman of that Na- 
tional reform body called the Committee of Ten in 
1899, he urged the abandonment of indiscriminate in- 
formation courses. He democratized the college spirit 
towards work by equalizing certain studies, standardiz- 
ing the time necessary to be devoted to them by stu- 
dents. Most of the great universities accepted this 
standard. Then, too. Dr. Eliot discouraged the High 



114 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Schools from conducting their courses as if they 
were preparatory for a university training, because he 
thought that secondary schools conducted by public 
funds should not prepare their students for education in 
universities, which many of them were never able to 
attain. One other important change he brought about 
was the cooperation of colleges in holding common en- 
trance examinations throughout the country. This 
was made possible by the adoption of the educational 
standards he had suggested and fixed. 

It was the new education of the whole country which 
Dr. Eliot shouldered when he became the President 
of Harvard. Up to that time Harvard's President 
was not important in public affairs. Dr. Eliot not 
only made Harvard a National monument of his ovm 
executive genius, but he brought National attention to 
the important character of educational responsibility 
imposed on the presidents of all leading universities 
in America. 

As a personality, Dr. Eliot was of course misunder- 
stood by a large section of the country when he 
began his reforms. Especially was he exposed to crit- 
icism by the undergraduates of Harvard. One of 
Dr. Eliot's innovations was the rule that it was bad 
form to encourage intercourse between members of the 
faculty and the students. This led to an impression 
that the professors were harsh and that the Harvard 
students were boorish. The college spirit and the aca- 
demic camaraderie that were crushed at Harvard came 
to a focus in the person of a young assistant professor 
who was dropped from the university. The young 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. 115 

professor represented the genial, companionable spirit 
of college life at Oxford, which might have been con- 
sidered sufficiently acceptable for Harvard, but Dr. 
Eliot thought differently. He did not believe that it 
was well for the boys to visit the tutors and professors 
socially. It was only a temporary decision, for it soon 
became apparent that too wide a breach had developed 
between faculty and students, and there followed a 
series of weekly teas at Brooks Hall, presided over 
by ladies from Boston, bishops when available, and 
talented persons who could really entertain. In this 
way the chasm between teacher and student at Har- 
vard was finally bridged, for it was a sincere move- 
ment, a Harvard dawn. It has made Harvard more 
human ever since. To restore the impression of Dr. 
Eliot's complete reversal of opinion, much was said to' 
show that he had really been secretly waiting for the 
time when it would be possible to stand "effulgent 
with social love in his heart, loving the boys, encourag- 
ing the professors, shedding influence," to quote an 
undergraduate of this period. 

"JS^ow as a matter of fact," continues this under- 
graduate's record of the new era in Harvard, which be- 
gan in 1880, "President Eliot was the spiritual father 
of the glacial era heretofore in progress, he was the 
figurehead of these previous dreadful times, and I have 
sometimes stopped to shake hands with him because 
I thought it was right, — and also, I confess, because I 
thought it would cause him' pain. Such is the silli- 
ness of the undergraduate mind." 

The trustees, the ladies, the bishops, and the society 



116 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

leaders in Boston, it seems, gathered thick and close 
around Dr. Eliot at this time, and "thawed him out." 
They told him he was misunderstood, that he had 
a heart of gold, and he responded to the treatment. 
He responded so promptly to any practical event that 
passed before him, that he could not have done other- 
wise than yield to the social warmth that came hot 
upon him. 

A picture of Dr. Eliot about this time, when he 
had been in office at Harvard over ten years and was 
tolerably well equipped with a knowledge of what he 
wanted to do for the students, is interesting. 

"The Dr. Eliot who first swam into my undergradu- 
ate ken as the martinet who stalked across the yard, 
and who was traditionally regarded as an important, 
hostile, and sinister influence, was a very unusual per- 
son. His voice was remarkable — a low, vibrant, eon- 
trolled, melodious voice that seemed to have so much 
reverence in it; the voice, you would say, of a culti- 
vated man. ISTo ideals except ideals of conduct had 
reality for him. Literature, philosophy, and all that, 
were the names of things in bottles to him. With this 
was combined a truly unique pity for poverty in a 
student, and a pious belief in education as a means 
of self-advancement. A sincere, spontaneous repre- 
sentative of the average American attitude toward col- 
lege students was Dr. Eliot in the '80 s. By some 
accident which separated him from his own class, — 
for New England possessed many men with a feeling 
for the Humanities, — he became representative of the 
country at large. 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. 117 

"There was, in Dr. Eliot, the presence of force. The 
voice was force, its vibrations were the vibrations of 
force. The modulations of it were the modulations 
of force, the melody was the melody of force. Behind 
it there was a two-handed engine of human pertinacity, 
... a genius for the understanding of men." 

Dr. Eliot grew up, from the period just described, 
to a N^ational size that has made of him a man figure, 
adored by men who have seen that figure grow to the 
height and strength of venerable age, unimpaired by 
physical intrusions. There has always been a glamor 
about his personality, which the undergraduate, in his 
analysis, foreshadowed. It was the glamor of culture, 
of breeding, of knowledge, and of intense sincerity. 
Every one believed in his righteousness, his real hu- 
mility, as an expression of intense loyalty, of that 
classic attachment to Harvard and ISTew England that 
is in itself a text of character. Dr. Eliot demonstrated 
the chief element of strength and dependability. Most 
things came to him in life, but he received them with 
humble, respectful interest, and it gradually occurred 
to people that Dr. Eliot was a man destined to answer 
all inquiries of his time and age. Everything about 
him was vital — his wonderful low voice, his benignant 
smile, well poised, never to be forgotten. Dr. Eliot's 
position in the world of Boston has been one of un- 
dimmed glory all his life. 

The surprising thing about this famous educational 
leader is the fact that although he emerged from the 
eighteenth century (his father was born in 1798), still 
he became a leader in the nineteenth century. His 



118 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

formality indicates that he never was really young. 
"He had the temperament of the ecclesiastic, of the 
Archbishop/' writes the observer of Dr. Eliot's life. 

The modem educational system is a reflex of Dr. 
Eliot's character that has influenced his generation 
and will extend into the next. The singular advantage 
of observing the effect of his own educational ideas 
upon many men, through the entire course of their 
lives, came to Dr. Eliot before his retirement as Presi- 
dent of Harvard. Addressing a group of new students 
in Harvard in 1905, three years before, he said : 

"I suppose I may fairly be called one of the elder 
brethren ; because it is fifty-six years since I came 
hither in the same grade many of you now occupy. 
So I have had a chance to watch a long stream of 
youth, growing up into men, and passing on to old 
men ; and I have had a chance to see what the durable 
satisfaction of their lives turned out to be. My con- 
temporaries are old men now, and I have seen their 
sons and their grandsons coming on in the over- 
flowing stream." 

"One of the indispensable satisfactions of life is 
health," Dr. Eliot advised young men. "We have to 
build on bodily wholesomeness and vitality." The 
next important lesson he had observed was to secure 
a strong mental grip, a wholesome capacity for hard 
work. But chief among all in the transition of any 
man's life. Dr. Eliot said, was "a spotless reputation." 

"It comes from living with honor, on honor. Some 
things the honorable man cannot do, never does. He 
never wrongs or degrades a woman. He never op- 



CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL. D. 119 

presses or cheats a person weaker or poorer than him- 
self. He never betrays a trust. He is honest, sin- 
cere, candid, and generous." 

These are the standards of Dr. Eliot's life that in- 
spire. Perhaps this great leader of education had less 
to overcome than many other men v^ho reached a con- 
spicuous place in history, and yet grief did not pass 
him by. In the year that he took office at Harvard, 
he lost his young wife, the companion of his youth and 
his ambition, who was Ellen Derby Peabody. A few 
years later he married Grace Miller Hopkinson. The 
affections and secret tics of his character were cen- 
tered in his son, Charles Eliot. The latter became a 
man of some fame as a landscape gardener, in fact, was 
in the zenith of his success, when he died. This was 
another blow that brought grief and sadness to Dr. 
Eliot's long life. This bereavement was deeply real- 
ized, for he erected a beautiful monument of paternal 
devotion, a memorial gift ^'for the dear son who died in 
his bright prime." The boy had inherited his love of 
nature, his ambition to refresh the choked and stifling 
cities with flowers and sky-room, from his delicate, 
frail, and poetic mother, Ellen Peabody Eliot. 

Marriage was one of the sound suggestions of Dr. 
Eliot's new education. He always urged early mar- 
riages. ''Look forward to being married," he said. 
"That forward look is one of the greatest safeguards of 
honorable living. Look forward to a blessed home of 
your own. I have known in my lifetime many fathers 
who came with great anxiety to talk about their sons' 
careers in the university, because they remembered that 



120 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

their own careers had not been a good example for their 
sons, and thej knew their sons knew it." 

Dr. Eliot was an idealist with that high and rare gift 
of perfect judgment. He reduced the necessary vir- 
tues of a man's life to four ideals: "Beauty, honor, 
duty, love. Their true and sufficient ends are knowl- 
edge and righteousness. 

In measuring the character that has made Dr. Eliot a 
leader in America, it has been said of him that Har- 
vard was only a part of it, for it is not only as a col- 
lege president, philosopher, statesman or teacher that 
he is known. In 1908 he retired, to be declared by 
representative Americans "the greatest citizen in the 
United States." 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

(1835-1893) 

GREAT PREACHER-PHILOSOPHER 




PHILLIPS BROOKS 




PHILLIPS BROOKS 

(1835-1893) 

GREAT PREACHER-PHILOSOPHER 

EEP very near to your Saviour, dear Philly, 
and remember the sacred vows that are upon 
you, and you will prosper," wrote Phillips 
Brooks's mother to him, when he was studying for the 
ministry at the Theological Seminary in Alexandria, 
yirginia. 

Over a hundred years before, in 1630, to be exact, 
his ancestor, the Rev. George Phillips, said the same 
thing, for he founded those religious principles that 
have dominated Puritan beliefs ever since. He was 
the founder of Puritan law in New England. Each 
of the succeeding generations of the Phillips family 
had included a Puritan minister. 

When Mary Ann Phillips married William Gray 
Brooks, there was united a religious ancestry that be- 
gan in the seventeenth century, for Thomas Brooks 
and Rev. George Phillips migrated from England in 
the same year and they were associated in the same 
parish at Watertown, near Boston. 

From his mother, Phillips Brooks inherited that 

form of religious belief which had only one purpose, 

to maintain the Puritan faith. He perpetuated the 

creed of his ancestors in its integrity. The family 

123 



124 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

lived a rare, devoted, yet isolated life, because they 
did not care to go out into society. The children were 
educated at home, the chief influence of that education 
being religion. The parents lived only for their chil- 
dren. They cared nothing for their own pleasures or 
advancement, their whole energies and interests being 
centered in the children and the home. It was, of 
course, an entirely religious home. Prayers were said 
in the house before work every morning, and every 
evening at nine o'clock. 

7iny one calling on the Brooks family in the evening 
would be sure to find them all sitting around the table 
in the "back parlor" ; father writing, because he found 
leisure for his literary ambitions only then ; mother 
sewing; the children studying their lessons for 
the next day. It was a quiet, aifectionately in- 
timate family circle, gathered together in a silent group 
like this, night after night. Visitors rarely came in, 
because they were not encouraged. They were very 
happy evenings, occasionally enlivened by the reading 
aloud of some new book, that is, after the lessons were 
learned. The real thing that kept the children at 
home, however, was the tremendous, concentrated love 
that their parents bestowed upon them with such united 
devotion. It was a charm the children could not es- 
cape from. It cast a spell over Phillips Brooks that 
lasted in his memory all his life, an inspiring influence 
that kept him always a child at heart. 

His earliest recollections are those of the Episcopal 
Church, which his mother had chosen in a moment of 
compromise between the doctrine that urged conscious 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 125 

relationship with God and the doctrine that expressed 
a faith in the word of the Scriptures and no more. 
Both parents went to St. Paul's on Tremont Street, 
Boston. His mother, so deeply attached to the religious 
purposes of life, was not satisfied until her husband, 
who had been Unitarian, should become a communi- 
cant of St. Paul's, not merely an attendant. At the 
age of twelve Phillips Brooks witnessed the ceremony 
in the church of his father's confirmation at the age 
of forty-two. His mother was greatly impressed with 
the importance of this act, though it aroused anxieties 
as to how soon her sons would do the same. 

There came to St. Paul's Church, about this time, 
a new rector, the famous Dr. Vinton. The impression 
which this preacher made upon Phillips Brooks was 
very great and lasted till ho entered the ministry him- 
self. In some ways Dr. Vinton resembled Phillips 
Brooks. He was very tall, majestic in carriage, a most 
impressive figure in the pulpit. He was the foremost 
Episcopal preacher in America in 1842. He was 
evangelical in his character, an inspired preacher, hav- 
ing left medical practice to become a minister. To 
Phillip Brooks, himself a man of rare idealistic per- 
ception, Dr. Vinton was a religious influence. His 
mother felt this power also, and so that she might bet- 
ter interpret religion to her children she attended the 
Bible classes that Dr. Vinton conducted, in which he 
explained the Scriptures. At night she would stay 
for a little while at the bedside of her children and tell 
them these Bible stories before they went to sleep. 
She never ceased her religious watchfulness, for when 



126 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAEACTER 

her sons became ministers, she guarded them still from 
dangerous doctrines which she feared might attack 
them. Every Sunday the children learned a hymn, 
which was recited when the family gathered in the 
evening. When Phillips Brooks was sixteen, he knew 
two hundred hymns by heart. 

It delighted that devoted mother when she found 
that Phillips Brooks, at eleven, was writing religious 
essays. They gave promise of the future man, for he 
was searching, then, for the "sunlight of truth," one 
of his favorite illustrations of religious purity in his 
sermons. He went to a small school when he was four 
years old, and finally was graduated from the Latin 
School, preparing for Harvard, third on the list, and he 
received the Franklin medal which meant excellence in 
final examinations. Still he must have found school 
difficult, for on a scrap of paper he wrote this solemn 
vow, when he was thirteen : 

"I, Phillips Brooks, do herebye promise, and pledge 
myself to study, henceforth, to the best of my ability. 
Phillips Brooks." 

He was very large and tall for his age, being within 
an inch of six feet, and naturally it made hira awkward. 
He carried his head on one side and often leaned on 
his brother's arm. This was the period when the in- 
ward development of his character was beginning. He 
thought about things that many people have never 
thought about in all their lives. He thought about the 
soul. It was an odd thing for a great big strong boy 
to be thinking about all the time — but he was only 
living over again the boyhood of his religious ancestors. 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 127 

for thej, too, kad been absorbed in such thoughts when 
they were his age. His schoolmates noticed that after 
school he never stayed to play, but went straight home. 
There was always about Phillips Brooks, all his life, 
a reserve that no one ever penetrated. There was 
about him, as a boy, some shyness. In him were the 
sacred fires of a life devoted wholly to the service of 
religion. It was while he was still at the Latin School, 
then in Boston, preparing for Harvard, that he wrote 
many maxims of conduct and thought bearing upon 
religious duty. It was evident that he was destined 
to be a minister, for his thoughts and ambitions were 
all of the spirit. 

The need of expressing himself was imperative. 
He wrote these essays out in fine penmanship which 
his father had taught him. His mother thought less of 
the importance of good handwriting than of the 
thoughts themselves, no matter how they were written. 

JN^aturally, a boy with such unusual ideas for his age 
had few companions, the absence of which he did not 
miss at all, because his home was far more satisfying 
to him than playing in the school-yard or running about 
with mischievous boys. The inward development of 
the boy, which began when he was fourteen, continued 
through his college days at Harvard and to the date 
of his admission to a theological college. The reserve, 
the loneliness of these years during which the youth in 
him was subjugated to the inner fires of religious in- 
spiration were the natural result of a predestined ca- 
reer. They were the years of his conversion, the period 
in his character when he found it necessary to find a 



128 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

solution of his own life that was not merely a matter 
of success to him, but a matter of finding out for him- 
self how the religious teachings of his childhood could 
be applied to the daily life of himself and others. 

He entered Harvard on his sixteenth birthday. Like 
his ancestors he absorbed the classics, won prizes for 
English literature, wrote better than any other students. 
Still, no one of his college mates remembers him for elo- 
quence, for which he was famous in the pulpit after- 
wards. He made no impression upon the literary so- 
cieties of Harvard. His reserve completely alienated 
him from any outward expression. That is why he 
kept many notebooks, in which he found an outlet for 
the ideas he could not talk about with the boys at col- 
lege, although he became a member of the Alpha Delta 
Phi and the Phi Beta Kappa. Phillips Brooks was a 
marked man at Harvard, however, for at sixteen he 
was six feet, three and a half inches tall. The sur- 
prising thing to his classmates was that he took no ac- 
tive part in college athletics. Sports did not appeal 
to him, although nature had built him to be a giant of 
strength. Even walking did not appeal to him. He 
spent his time between studies reading Carlyle, Emer- 
son, Johnson, Goldsmith, Dryden, Swift. Probably his 
most religious teacher among these authors was Emer- 
son. While he was at Harvard there came a period of 
"religious doubt," over the country, which especially af- 
fected the university students. Lord Tennyson's poem, 
*'In Memoriam," became a text to young Phillips 
Brooks. He kept repeating lines from it. It disturbed 
the rock-ribbed principles of the old Puritan laws. 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 129 

These transitions and changes in old standards delayed 
him from presenting himself for confirmation. 

At twenty, when he was graduated from Harvard, he 
was still a boy in manner and feeling. He always had 
a deep emotional nature, so that his ideas poured from 
him in a torrent of words so rapidly that many people 
believed he had adopted that form of quick talking, of 
rapid delivery, to cover up a defect of speech. He 
left Harvard fully aware that, in the opinion of young 
men of his day, the Church was not looked upon as a 
lucrative profession, but he appeared to be under the 
sway of some hidden inward force. One of his class- 
mates described his impression of Phillips Brooks as 
reminding him of Wordsworth's line, ''Moving a.bout in 
worlds not realized." 

Before he reached his twentieth birthday, he took a 
position as a teacher at the Boston Latin School, In 
his mind, at that time, was a plan to become a pro- 
fessor, after a trip abroad. Though he was well fitted 
to teach, he lacked tlie gift of maintaining discipline 
in his classes, and failed to hold the position. He 
resigned. His father explained it amply when he 
wrote : 

"The class of boys were from fifteen to seventeen 
and he was only twenty. The task was too much for 
him." 

In a sense it was a disaster and completely ended 
any plans he may have had to become a teacher. To 
add to it, the superintendent of the school informed 
Phillips Brooks when he was leaving that he had never 
known a man who failed as a school teacher to succeed 



130 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

in anything else. Then followed six months of re- 
tirement, of inward shame at this first failure ; so great 
that when Dr. Vinton sent for him, his father replied 
that the boj was too miserable and crushed to see any 
one. This was a period of great trial, during which 
the inner struggle was revealed in voluminous notes 
written in notebooks which have been preserved. He 
left home suddenly for a theological seminary of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia. 
He consulted no one but his father and mother, and 
his friends, missing him from Boston, were very much 
surprised. Writing his father he said, "Please let all 
that matter drop. I said scarcely anything to any one 
about it but you and mother. Consider me here at 
the seminary without debating how I got here." 

Just before leaving home, at this turning-point in 
his career, he Wrote the following in a notebook : 

"As we pass from some experience to some experi- 
ment, from a tried to an untried scene of life, it is as 
when we turn to a new page in a book we have never 
read before, but whose author we know and love and 
trust to give us on every page words of counsel and 
purity and strengthening virtue." 

In his second year he came under the influence of 
Goethe's poetry. He seemed to accept Goethe's con- 
ception of life. This influence remained with him, 
for part of his creed in all his sermons was that the 
Christian life involved with spiritual culture an in- 
sight into the relations of art to the highest develop- 
ment. 

He sent his first sermon to his fathei', before deliver- 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 131 

ing it. The manuscript was marked "private." Writ- 
ing his father, he sajs indifferently : 

"Tell me how it struck you ? How it wou-ld have 
struck you had you heard a strange young man of 
six foot four preach it in your own pulpit, what you 
would have said about it when you first got home ? Be 
indulgent with it, it is my first." 

It was his first sermon and was considered his mani- 
festo of faith. He became a lay reader, preaching 
extemporaneous sermons when assigned to fill vacant 
pulpits here and there. One Sunday, when he was 
twenty-four, while he was conducting a service for the 
Sharon Mission, about four miles from the seminary, 
in Virginia, two gentlemen called and offered him the 
rectorship of the Church of the Advent in Philadel- 
phia. After a week of extreme sensitiveness, in which 
he dreaded the possibility of a failure such as he had 
encountered in his effort to become a teacher, he ac- 
cepted a temporary attachment to the church in Phila- 
delphia as an assistant pastor for three months. The 
vestry could then offer him the pastorship again, or he 
could himself withdraw. He was appointed rector of 
the church. 

In a way his life had been an experiment up to this 
time, but on the day of his ordination there were some 
present who were confident for him ; among them, of 
course, his father. The Sunday after he was ordained 
he paid a visit to Rev. H. M. Randolph, later Bishop 
of Southern Virginia, who had offered the young man 
his pulpit for that day. Bishop Randolph's impres- 
sion of Phillips Brooks, the youngster of twenty-four, 



132 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

is an impression of all that his whole life fulfilled as a 
preacher and as a teacher. 

"I am reminded of these characteristics of his preach- 
ing," the Bishop records, "which all who ever heard him 
will recognize, — a singular absence of self-conscious- 
ness, a spontaneity of beautiful thinking clothed in pure 
English words, a joy in his own thoughts, and a vic- 
torious mastering of the truth he was telling, encoun- 
tered with humility and reverence and love for the 
congregation. I have heard him often since, and thel 
impression was always the same." 

This was written as an appreciation years after Phil- 
lips Brooks became a leader in the closing years of the 
nineteenth century. 

Several years were spent in Philadelphia, but in 
1869, when he was thirty-four years old, he received 
a call from Trinity Church, Boston, where he became 
famous as a preacher, as a personality of rare charm 
and spiritual force. He became Bishop of Massachu- 
setts in 1891, against his inclination, repeatedly 
expressed in his correspondence. 

He wrote in one of his notebooks before he was 
twenty, the whole inward development of his character: 

"Life is developing the energies of thought, while 
thought is working out the richness that lies hid in life." 



MOODY AND SANKEY 

(1837-1899) (1840-1909) 

PIONEER EVANGELISTS 




DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY 



MOODY AND SANKEY 

(1837-1899) (1840-1909) 

PTONEER EVANGELISTS 

BETWEEN Dwight Lyman Moody, the famous 
evangelist, and Ira David Sankey, who "sang 
the gospel," there was a close association of 
work, for over forty years. They were Christian 
workers, each of them pledged to save the souls of 
his fellow-men. The Moody and Sankey hymn-book, 
next to the Bible, had the widest circulation in the 
world. It is printed in all languages. Thousands 
upon thousands of people went to hear the great evan- 
gelist preach, and listen to the rare hymn-singing of 
Ira D. Sankey. When they were asked to explain why 
they had the power to attract such great crowds, each 
one, in his own way, said that it was because they were 
inspired by the Holy Ghost. 

Apart from this simple confession of faith, they were 
no different from other men, except that once inspired 
by a tremendous Christian force of character they 
were able to help men and women to live Christian 
lives. 

Of the two men, Moody, the evangelist preacher, was 
the more remarkable, because he overcame so many ob- 
stacles in his life which Sankey never had to overcome. 

135 



136 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

But the tie that held them together was a sort of holy 
partnership, the foundation of which was laid long be- 
fore they had ever heard of each other. 

They were born in different parts of the country, 
Moody in the hills of Massachusetts, Sankey in the 
valley country of Pennsylvania. Moody's parents were 
poor, obscure farmers. Sankey's father served in the 
State Legislature and was well to do all his life. They 
were widely separated in educational advantages, but 
their influence in the world came from the same source 
of character in them; they shared the responsibilities 
they felt in order to spread the gospel. Of the two 
men, Sankey had the quieter nature. Moody was im- 
pulsive, violent in his passion for religious feeling. 

Outwardly Moody was the strong, rugged, abrupt 
teacher of the Bible; Sankey, in his singing, thrilled 
the crowd with the gentle sweetness of his voice. The 
sincerity of his own conversion was something he made 
others feel when he sang. 

Moody's boyhood was a rough and tumble fight 
against poverty, on a small farm which his father, who 
died when he was four years old, left heavily mort- 
gaged. His mother, with nine children to support, of 
whom Dwight was "the sixth child, refused to appren- 
tice any of them. She fought to keepT them with her. 
She loved them all with a devotion that could not bear 
thought of separation from any of them. There was 
room to shelter them in the two-story frame farmhouse 
in ISTorthfield, Massachusetts, and out of the three acres 
of land they managed to struggle along together ; often 
short of food and clothes, always on the edge of being 



MOODY AND SANKEY 137 

compelled to break up the home. His mother was 
very religious. She made it a* rule, before every meal, 
to make the children stand up and repeat, together, 
some text from the Bible. She explained to them that 
they must put their trust in God, and if they wanted 
anything they must pray for it. 

Dwight was the strongest of them all. He had mus- 
cles like iron, and his body was heavy and powerful. 
He could always get a job doing extra chores for the 
neighbors on the farms, in between work at home. He 
was somewhat of a terror to the other boys, because of 
his strength. He was a natural leader among them, 
especially in the mischief of the neighborhood, so full of 
life that it was impossible to control him. His sense 
of fun was inexhaustible. He was always inventing 
some trick that would make the others laugh, usually 
at the expense of some one else. 

As a boy he was not interested in religion or the 
Bible at all. He had a determined will of his own ; an 
unmanageable boy, because there was no one stronger 
than himself. 

His first convincing experience of the power of 
prayer came to him when he was about ten years old. 
He had. gone across lots, up in the hills away from 
the roads, and while crawling through a rail fence, one 
of the rails broke and the whole fence fell on top of 
him, pinning him to the ground. Even with all his 
strength he couldn't get up. Then he yelled for help, 
but no one heard him because he was some distance 
from the road. When he grew tired of shouting, and 
the sun went down, and it began to grow dark, he 



138 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

found himself fearing that he might die there, pinned 
to the ground, before any one came. He began to think 
of his mother and for the first time he thought seriously 
of her teaching that God would answer any prayer. So 
very humbly he asked God to let him out of his diffi- 
culty, to lift the fence that pinned him down. The 
answer to his prayer came at once. One of the rails 
shifted, he crawled out safely. This experience made 
a deep impression on him. Ever afterwards, through 
his whole life, he never worried about the future; he 
always found that if he prayed earnestly, "God took 
care of me." 

This was only the first step in his religious life. He 
had yet to learn, that which he taught others to under- 
stand, that a Christian life does not mean merely to 
pray to save one's self, but above all to save others, too. 
After this experience he listened with more attention 
to the Bible talks which his mother used to give her 
children. Above all she impressed upon him the 
habit of charity. When some one came to the house 
who needed food she would say to the children, "Well, 
we must cut the loaf in thinner slices, so there will be 
enough for all." 

He went to the district school like other boys, but he 
was often whipped by the teacher, which was the custom 
in dealing with unruly boys in those days. Even his 
mother believed in that sort of punishment. She would 
send him out to get a stick. He would be gone a long 
time hunting for a small one, or, if he could find it, a 
dead branch. When he brought in such a stick, his 
mother would send him out again to get a stronger 



MOODY AND SANKEY 139 

one. She knew that all the time he spent looking for 
the stick was punishment. Once he told her she didn't 
hurt him, but never again, for then she punished him 
more severely. 

One season, at the district school, the older people 
decided that thej would get a teacher who would rule 
without the rattan stick', so a young lady was engaged. 
Dwight did not believe she would succeed. One day 
she asked him to stay after school, and he winked at 
the other boys, as much as to say, "I told you so, it's 
the old stick again." He was surprised when the 
teacher told him that she was very unhappy to think 
that he, who was the biggest boy in school, should bo 
so mischievous. She told him that she wanted to rule 
with love, and she put him on his honor to be a good 
boy, and sent him home. After that he made the other 
boys behave, as well as himself. About the last thing 
he did in school that was mischievous was when he de- 
livered in class the oration of Marc Antony over the 
body of Caesar. He arranged to have a box, shaped 
like a coffin, brought into the school, and, just at the 
most serious place, he kicked the box and out jumped 
a cat, which made everybody laugh. 

His mother made home the nicest place in the world, 
for, even if they were so poor, she was always getting 
up parties in the house so as to keep the children near 
her. The first time he left home nearly broke his 
heart. His older brother had gone to work in Green- 
field, a few miles from home, and he got so lonely that 
he induced Dwight to join him. All his life Dwight 
hated November, because it was in that month he left 



140 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

home with his brother. He cried all the way, and when 
he reached his destination he told his brother he 
wouldn't stay. His brother, anxious to keep him in 
Greenfield, told him there was an old gentleman who 
lived there, who made it a rule to give a penny to every 
new boy who came. Just then this man came along the 
street, and Dwight was so afraid he wouldn't see him 
that he stood right in front of him. The old gentle- 
man put his hand on his head, talked to him kindly, 
and smiling tenderly at the little boy, said, "Why, this 
is a new boy in town, I never saw him before." 
His brother said that he had just arrived. So the kind 
man put his hand in his pocket, drew out a bright new 
penny that looked like gold, and gave it to Dwight. 
All his life he remembered this thoughtful piece of kind- 
ness, and it made him do many nice things for other 
lonely boys and girls in the world. 

Of course he was born with a good heart himself, in 
spite of his love of mischief, otherwise he couldn't have 
appreciated what kindness meant. As he explained it 
years later, he had "a passion for men's souls." 

When he was seventeen, he had asked his uncle, hia 
mother's brother, Samuel Holton, who had a shoe store 
in Boston, for a job; but his uncle had not answered 
him. Later he left home of his own accord and went to 
Boston, but did not go to his uncle. He was too proud 
to do so. He said afterwards he always secretly be- 
lieved that God would provide. He had a hard time 
of it, looking for work and not finding it. He was 
lonely and hungry and slept out of doors. Gradually 
his pride was beaten, and he went to his uncle's shoe 



MOODY AND SANKEY 141 

store. His uncle laid down certain rules, told him he 
must not boss the help in the store, that he must do his 
work, go to church, and not do anything that he didn't 
want his mother to know. 

"Go and think it over, and come back Monday," said 
his uncle. 

"I've thought it over, sir," said Dwight promptly, 
"and I'll do my best." He applied himself to busi- 
ness, and was one of the best shoe clerks in the 
store. His business ability was so apparent that he 
could have made a great success as a merchant. He 
was a first-class salesman, but while he was in Boston 
something happened to him that altered his career 
and made him a great evangelist. He went to the Sun- 
day School of the Mount Vernon Congregational 
Church, — because he had to. He was given a Bible 
and told to open it at the gospel of St. John. He pre- 
tended to look through the pages of the book, but 
couldn't find it. He noticed that the other boys were 
laughing at his ignorance. The teacher, Edward Kim- 
ball, quickly handed him the Bible opened at the right 
place, and asked him for the one he had in his hand. 
This gracious act made him very grateful to Mr. Kim- 
ball, in fact he felt under obligation to him ever after- 
wards. From the Sunday School teacher he learned to 
understand the power of religion ; at the same time he 
was attending to business with great success in the shoe 
store. He wrote his mother that he hoped to save up 
a hundred dollars, build a house, rent rooms, and have 
her live with him. The landlady where he boarded 
was kind and helped him to study his Bible. When 



142 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

he had advanced to a point where Mr. Kimball thought 
the boy was ready to become a member of the church 
he told the minister, Mr. Kirk. 

One afternoon in 1856, when Dwight was nineteen, 
the minister called on him at the shoe store. In the 
back part of the store he asked Dwight Moody to 
acknowledge Christ, to take the Christian vows, and join 
the church. He found the young man earnest and will- 
ing, and they knelt down, where no one could see them, 
and prayed ; and that was Moody's hour of conversion, 
when he solemnly vowed to serve God. 

Mr. Moody explained this event of his life when he 
said : 

^'I was born in the flesh in 1837, in the spirit in 
1856." 

It is an odd coincidence that in that same year the 
man who was to be associated with him, then only a 
boy of sixteen living in JSTew Castle, Pennsylvania, 
where his father had become president of a bank, was 
converted at a revivalist meeting and took similar vows 
to devote his life to Christian work. Neither of them 
knew that they were destined to do such great things 
for Christianity and to be united in the world's history 
as Moody and Sankey. 

Dwight Moody was given membership papers in the 
Mount Vernon Congregational Church, and shortly af- 
terwards went to Chicago, in search of a better job. He 
was then still planning a business life, selling shoes 
during the day and studying his Bible at night. He 
didn't tell any one, not even his mother, because he was 
afraid they wouldn't let him go if he did. It was a 



MOODY AND SANKEY 143 

terrible blow to his mother when she received a letter 
from him, so far away as Chicago. 

In Chicago he presented his letters of church mem- 
bership to the Plymouth Congregational Church and 
was cordially received. He wrote his mother how 
happy he was in his Christian vows and that '^God 
is the same all over the world." He got a job with a 
shoe firm in Chicago and lived with other clerks in 
rooms in the store. And he looked about to see what 
he could do in church work. 

"I have no education, but I love the Lord Jesus 
Christ and I want to do something for him," he said. 

He rented five pews in the Plymouth Congregational 
Church and filled them every Sunday with men and 
boys he picked up in the street. This was the begin- 
ning of his success in evangelical work, getting people 
to listen to the word of God. When the men he stopped 
in the street asked him what he was doing he replied, 
simply, ".I'm at work for Jesus Christ." 

From these men and boys he found in the street, 
he acquired what was known as the Mission Band, a 
class of ignorant street gamins. He found an old dilap- 
idated "shack" in what was then the lowest and poorest 
quarter of Chicago, the North Side, and started a Sun- 
day School. These boys were called his "bodyguard." 
He coaxed them to come in by giving them bits of maple 
sugar which he bought for them. All this time he was 
prospering in his business. Finally he was made a 
traveling salesman, but this threatened to keep him 
away on Sunday from his Sunday School. In six years 
he gathered here a membership of a thousand scholars. 



144 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

which began with very ragged boys, whom he after- 
wards clothed and housed in new quarters in the 
N'orth Market. In any crisis of his life he always felt 
that God would provide. So it happened that the 
president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Rail- 
road gave him a free pass while he was traveling 
salesman, so that he could get back to Chicago every 
Sunday for his school. 

The time came when he had to choose between his 
work as an evangelist or his business life, and he re- 
signed his job. 

He had saved a little money and he put away a thou- 
sand dollars to live on for a year and devoted his life to 
the great work that made him famous. With part of 
his savings he bought a pony, on which he used to 
ride through the side streets on Sunday getting new 
pupils for his Sunday School. They would climb on 
behind him and he would give them rides, and soon 
the newspapers began to talk about him. Some called 
him '^Crazy Moody," others "Brother Moody" ; but he 
kept right on "at work for Jesus Christ." 

When he was twenty-five with no other assets but 
his pay and plans for others, he married Miss Emma 
C. E'evell, who had helped him as a teacher in his 
Sunday School. She taught a class of forty middle- 
aged men, while his specialty was boys. Sometimes 
he had to subdue particularly obstinate boys, as he did 
on one occasion when he locked himself in a room with 
one. When they came out, they were both battered, 
but he said, "It was hard work, but I guess we've saved 
him." 




IRA DAVID SAN KEY 



MOODY AND SANKEY 145 

From Chicago his fame spread, as a revivalist, and 
he was called to hold meetings in other towns. Money 
was always provided for his ventures, but not nntil he 
had exhausted his savings and found himself sleeping 
on the benches in a back room of a Methodist Church, 
where he had organized a Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation. When friends found out his condition they 
helped him ; and all this while he had money he col- 
lected for charity for his boys, and he wouldn't touch a 
cent of it. 

By the time Dwight was a man, over thirty, he had 
already achieved fame as an evangelist preacher. lie 
had no opposition from the churches, in fact they 
helped him for they saw that he was a strong Christian 
soldier. It was in Indianapolis, at an International 
Sunday School Conference, that he first met Ira D. 
Sankey who had been sent to the conference as a dele- 
gate from Pennsylvania. In Newcastle, Pennsylvania, 
where Sankey lived, he had already become prominent 
in church work. He was superintendent of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Sunday School there. lie had en- 
listed in the Civil War, and served in a regiment in 
Maryland. It was during camp life as a soldier that 
Mr. Sankey discovered his gift for singing. His first 
hymns were sung around the camp fire. As soon as 
the war was over he married a young lady who sang 
in a church choir, so that when he went to Indianap- 
olis to hear Moody preach, he had a family of his 
own. 

Moody made a tremendous impression upon him. 
At last, he felt, here was a man who could talk about 



146 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

religion so that everybody understood it. There were 
no big words in his talks, but some big ideas. During 
the services, a hymn was given out and there was no 
one to lead in the singing, no one at least that was very 
good at it. Moody realized the value of music in his 
evangelistic meetings, but he could not sing much him- 
self. So Mr. Sankey stood up and sang the hymn, and 
every one was spellbound. Tears rolled down the evan- 
gelist's face as he heard Mr. Sankey sing for the first 
time. 

Dwight Moody was not slow in making up his mind. 
He got an introduction to Sankey, and as soon as he 
met him, he asked him what he was doing. He told 
Mr. Moody he was employed by the Government in the 
Internal Revenue Department, and that he lived with 
his family in ISTewcastle, Pennsylvania. 

"Well, you'll have to give that up," said Moody in 
his abrupt, domineering way. "I've been looking for 
you eight years, and you've got to come with me." 

Mr. Sankey was very much surprised at this, but he 
said he would think it over. Moody at this time was 
a man of power and influence. He had raised person- 
ally twenty thousand dollars in subscriptions and built 
the Illinois Street Church in Chicago, which, although 
conducted under the auspices of the Congregational 
Church, became famous as Dwight Moody's Church. 
And Mr. Sankey knew what it meant to be a Christian 
worker, for, like Moody, he had been converted, just 
as he saw the great evangelist converting others, by the 
power of the Holy Ghost in him ; and he saw, too, that 
Dwight Moody was rescuing souls. The membership 



MOODY AND SANKEY 147 

of the Illinois Street Churcli was chiefly made up of 
people he had rescued from degradation, 

Mr. Sankey was ready to make sacrifices for God, as 
Dwight Moody was, and that was really why they were 
so fond of each other. They were both pledged to be 
"at work for Jesus Christ." 

Sankey's extraordinary gift of singing hymns was not 
because he had a wonderful voice or because he under- 
stood music. His voice was a small one and his 
knowledge of music not very great. But, whenever he 
sang hymns, as he did to thousands upon thousands of 
people in many cities, he seemed to be inspired. He 
was able to inspire silence in the crowd, that came like 
a calm after the storm of Dwight Moody's powerful 
preaching. Sankey's singing went straight to the heart, 
it made people think of the love of God. Some of the 
lines in his hymns he sang so softly that they were more 
spoken than sung. A certain class of people attended 
the Moody and Sankey meetings only to hear Sankey. 
It was the partnership of these two men that led to the 
great revival meetings in London, in Liverpool, in fact 
in all the large cities of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land. 

In Scotland Mr. Sankey's "Human Hymns" were 
condemned by some. And the small cabinet organ at 
which he accompanied himself was called a "Kist-o'- 
Whistles." When, as sometimes happened, comedians 
in the theater tried to make jokes at the expense of 
Moody and Sankey, the audience hissed them. 

Sankey's hymn-book was a collection of hymns he 
had clipped or found from all denominations. He 



148 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

also wrote the music to new words for the hymns writ- 
ten by Horatius Bonar, "Hold the Fort, for I am Com- 
ing," and "I Heard the Voice of Jesus." The hymn- 
book which was named by Mr. Sankey, "Sacred Songs 
and Solos of Ira D. Sankey at the meetings of Mr. 
Moody in Chicago," contained only twenty-three num- 
bers. It became a volume of twelve hundred songs. 
They were called "Human Hymns," because they were 
different from the usual sacred songs of the day. Mr. 
Sankey's own favorites were "Ninety and Nine," 
"There is a Fountain Filled with Blood," "Jesus of 
Nazareth," and "Sweet Bye-and-Bye." The most fam- 
ous of Sankey's hymns is "Abide with Me, Fast Falls 
the Eventide." 

While Sankey "sang the gospel," Moody "preached 
it," and their gospel campaigns were unanimous revival 
meetings. In New York, at Gilmore's Garden, they 
required five hundred ushers to manage the crowd, and 
Mr. Sankey had a choir of twelve hundred voices. 

In 1869 the Chicago fire destroyed the North Side 
Tabernacle where Moody and Sankey began their per- 
manent partnership in the gospel. They had lived 
there together. With the help of John Wanamaker 
and George H. Stuart a new church was built later, 
the Chicago Avenue Church. 

D wight Moody's great physical energy often tired 
out every one about him. Once, on New Year's Day, 
he announced that with his deacons he would make two 
hundred New Year's calls on the members of his 
church. Most of them lived in tenements and on top 
floors. Moody started out in a bus. He would rush 



MOODY AND SANKEY 149 

up several flights of stairs, knock on the door, walk in 
and say to the astonished members of his church, in his 
abrupt way: 

"I am Moody. Are you well? Do you all come to 
church ? Have you all the coal you need for the win- 
ter? Let us pray!" 

The prayer was short, and in a few minutes he was 
out of the door, on his way to the next visit, his dea- 
cons trailing after him. 

Dwight Moody returned to his birthplace in North- 
field, Massachusetts, and built two fine schools there, 
one for boys and another for girls. His mother lived 
to be ninety-one years old. She was angry with him 
for being a layman preacher. Herself a Puritan, she 
believed that no man could preach unless he was first 
ordained. When he held his first revival meeting in 
Northfield, the family hitched up the wagon to go into 
town to hear him. His mother had refused to go, till 
at the last minute she said, ^'I suppose there won't be 
room in the wagon for me." 

When Dwight saw his mother in the meeting, he 
was troubled. When at last he asked those who felt 
the power of the Spirit in them, to rise, his mother 
was the first to stand up with her head bowed, as if 
asking her son's forgiveness. 

He had a "passion for souls," which his mother un- 
derstood at last. When later some one asked her what 
she thought of her son, she said slyly : 

"I always thought Dwight would be one thing or 
another." 

I kept this incident in Moody's life to the last, be- 



150 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

cause it expresses the purpose of tlie lives of both these 
pioneer evangelists of the world. Together they created 
a new religious appeal, they being the first leaders of 
revival meetings which since have spread all over the 
world. In them was the spirit of the gospel, the doc- 
trine of the Bible. 

Moody proved that scriptural language could be 
translated into an eloquence more modern in scope, and 
Sankey supplemented with the spiritual meaning of a 
hymn which could sing itself into the hearts of all 
sorts of people, religious or not. Moody and Sankey 
were the originators of a class of preaching and sacred 
singing which was the beginning of revival meetings 
as large and as soul-stirring as their own. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 

(1837-1908) 

TWICE PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 




Courtesy of Mr. Frederick Hill Meserve 

GROVER CLEVELAND 



GROVER CLEVELAND 

(1837-1908) 

TWICE PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

WHERE'S Grove?" asked Deacon McVic- 
car, as lie stepped from behind a barrel of 
molr.sses in the country store in Fayet- 
ville, a small village near Syracuse, New York. 

"I see him and Howard Edwards goin' off fishin'/' 
said one of the men. The same thing had happened 
often before. 

"He's a good boy," said McViccar, who o^^^led the 
country store where Grover Cleveland was employed, 
"but he's the gosh-darndest fisherman I ever did hear 
tell of." 

The other men in the store laughed, and the deacon 
went back behind the counter, shaking his head sadly. 

The fact is that when Grover Cleveland was a coun- 
try boy he and Howard Edwards were chums. How- 
ard saw nothing wonderful about his pal "Grove," ex- 
cept that they got along well together. They were 
about the same age and size when they both lived in 
the little village near Syracuse, and they played, and 
often slept and ate, together. They had lots of fun 
too. There was one thing about Grove, you were al- 
ways sure to catch fish when you went fishing with 

153 



154 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

him, because he knew just what kind of bait to get, 
how to put it on the hook, and did not get discouraged 
if the fish didn't bite at once. Grove would rather fish 
than eat. 

He was always full of fun. The best joke he played 
on the village was when he tied a long string to the 
clapper of the village bell and kept it hidden. At 
night the people of the village were suddenly startled 
by a loud ringing of the bell, and every one rushed 
out of the houses to find out who rang it; but they 
never did. 

Most boys who became well known men in Amer- 
ican life after they grew up showed some indica- 
tion that they would become famous for one thing or 
another; but the only thing Grove excelled in, so far 
as any one else could see, was fishing. That in itself 
was not a very promising outlook. He was just a 
freckled, mischievous, good-natured little country boy, 
who worked for the country store in Fayetville. His 
father had been pastor of the Congregational Church 
of the village, and some of his brothers and sisters were 
born there. Still, although he himself had been born 
in Caldwell, l^ew Jersey, everybody in Fayetville knew 
him as the "parson's son." Every one liked him. He 
M^as an obliging, respectful sort of boy. 

While he seemed to be doing nothing but just grow- 
ing up, he was, as a matter of fact, quietly learning 
the most important thing in life to make a man suc- 
cessful ; he was studying other men. This was not be- 
cause he was planning to become President of the 
United States, but because he always had a great in- 



GROVER CLEVELAND 155 

terest in people. There is no better place to find out 
just how different men and women are than a country 
store. The whole neighborhood for miles around had 
to go there to buy what they needed, and Grove was pop- 
ular with them because he would listen to all their 
troubles, without saying a word himself; and though he 
had given them no advice, because he was too young 
then to be able to do so, they went away with a feeling 
that he was a smart boy because he had listened so at- 
tentively, and discreetly said nothing. This was one 
of Grove's greatest gifts, which later in life secured 
him the friendship of men and the confidence of a 
^Nation. 

It was not a gift Grove was conscious of. Being 
one of the younger members of a family of nine chil- 
dren, he was not thinking very much about himself. 
He did not expect to have the advantages of his elder 
brother William, and he had so many sisters to boss 
over him that he was glad to be working in the store, 
at another village than where they lived then. He 
wasn't one of those studious boys who was always read- 
ing difficult books — Grove wasn't that sort of a boy. 
He just went along quietly working for Deacon McVic- 
car, and earning fifty dollars a year which he contrib- 
uted to his father's large household in Clinton, 'New 
York. 

The way he went to work in the store at Fayetville 
was this. His father had taken a church in Clinton, 
New York, because Hamilton College and also pre- 
paratory schools were there ; and as he was him- 
self a college graduate, having gone to YaJe when 



156 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

he was young, he wanted his children to be well edu- 
cated. When the family first went to Clinton, Wil- 
liam, the oldest brother, went at once to Hamilton 
College and studied for the ministry. Grove started in 
at one of the preparatory schools. His father soon 
found that the expenses of the home were too great, and 
as Grove was a sturdy, dependable boy he was sent to 
take a job in the country store kept by his father's old 
friend, a former deacon in his church. 

He remained there two years, at the end of which 
time he had gained some valuable things in his life. 
He had met so many different kinds of people that 
he had learned to know just how to make friends with 
any one at all. He did not allow his own likes and dis- 
likes to influence his manner towards any one. He did 
not judge people by the clothes they had on or the 
education they had. He just learned to look for the 
best in every one, and they liked him for it because they 
knew he was fair and just to them. 

Grove was the kind of boy who educated himself 
along this line, unconsciously preparing himself for the 
greatest possible gift of character — good judgment. 
He was born in a village, and out of his village life 
came those broader qualities of mind and heart that 
prepared him for the difficult work of being a leader 
himself. Those two years in a country store were 
the most valuable training of his life. 

At the end of two years he returned to Clinton and 
had just begun to take up his studies at the prepara- 
tory school where he had left them off, when his father 
died very suddenly. He was in Utica for the day with 



GROVER CLEVELAND 157 

his sister when the news reached them. Of course he 
went home feeling very sad, but above all he was 
thoughtful. He was fifteen years old when this hap- 
pened to him. 

As a boy, Grove was always far ahead of his years. 
He felt the burden of responsibility which his father's 
sudden death brought to him. Being one of four 
brothers, it was his duty to share in taking care of his 
mother and sisters. His brother William had become 
an instructor at the Institution for the Blind in New 
York City, and he secured a place for Grove as his 
assistant. The family remained at the little village 
of Holland Patent where their father had moved in 
search of health and had died. Of course this was 
only a beginning. Grove knew very well that he had 
to think about a career for himself, and having no 
money, he had to decide first upon what he wanted to 
be, and second, how he was going to get there. 

There was one thing about Grove that made every 
one, young and old, always respect him very highly; 
he was modest about his own ability. Long after he 
had retired from public life, after he had twice been 
elected President of the United States, he never spoke 
of himself as President. If a question was asked him 
he always said, "When I was in Washington," he never 
said, "When I was President." This was very useful 
to him, this habit of being modest about himself when 
every one knew he was a great man, — in fact it was 
just what made him a great man. 

It had been anticipated that Grove would become 
a minister like his father, but his older brother Wil- 



158 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

liam graduated for the ministry at Hamilton College, 
and Grove thought that was enough in the family. 

With another boy of about his own age, whose am- 
bitions were also just beginning to develop, Grov© 
talked over future plans. As a lot of other boys had 
done before them, they decided to start out together 
on a journey in search of their fortunes. Instead of 
going to the great cities to find them, however, Grove 
was in favor of trying smaller places. He had been 
in New York and had seen the hardships they might 
have to meet, alone without money, in the big city. 
So they decided to go west from the little village of 
Holland Patent. 

Having no money saved up, Grove, who had sent 
all his earnings in New York to his mother, realized 
that it was absolutely necessary to have some before 
starting away. He went to an old friend of his fa- 
ther's. Honorable Ingham Townsend of Fonda, New 
York, who had given many young men their first start in 
life, and asked him for twenty-five dollars. This was a 
lot of money for two boys to start out with to make 
their fortunes, but Mr. Townsend gave it willingly, tell- 
ing Grove that he need never return it, but that if he 
should ever meet a young man in need, as he himself 
then was, he might pay the debt to that young man if 
he could spare it. Many years later, when Mr. Town- 
send was a very old man, he received that twenty-five 
dollars back from Grover Cleveland, then Assistant 
District Attorney of Erie County. 

The two boys. Grove and his chum, tried to get jobs 
in Utica and Syracuse, without success. It was diffi- 



GROVER CLEVELAND 159 

cult to decide where to go next. One place seemed 
just as good as another, so Grove suggested they start 
for Cleveland, Ohio. He believed that as the town 
bore his name it ought to bring them good luck. Cleve- 
land was a very long way from Syracuse, however, but 
that didn't matter. They had no friends, no advisers, 
no particular place where they were sure of work, and 
very little money to last them. When they reached 
Buffalo, which is on the way to Cleveland, Grove 
thought he would make a call on his aunt and uncle 
by marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis F. Allen. They 
lived in a fine house in the suburb of Black Rock. 
While he left his friend in Buffalo to wait for his 
return, he walked out to his uncle's house. He told 
his uncle that he was on his way to Cleveland to make 
his fortune. 

"Grove, what on earth are you going to Cleveland 
for ?" his uncle asked him. 

"I think I'm going to become a lawyer, there," said 
the youth quietly. 

"The law business in Cleveland is very bad, I've 
heard," said his uncle slowly. "If you will stop with 
us, I will try to find a place in a lawyer's ofiice for 
you here. Is any one with you ?" 

"Yes, one of my friends was going west to find some- 
thing to do, and I was going with him. I shall have 
to ask him if he will excuse me if I stop here with 
you." 

His obligations of friendship were always uppermost 
in his character, and Grove took that long walk back 
to Buffalo to explain the situation to his friend. The 



160 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

latter said it would make no difference in his plans 
if Grove stayed with his relatives, and so they sep- 
arated. 

That is how, at eighteen years old, this penniless boy 
began his career in Buffalo, JSTew York, to become, 
thirty years later. President of the United States. 

The home in which he now found himself was a 
beautiful house. Black Rock was a delightful suburb, 
in 1855, only two miles from the heart of the city. The 
Allen homestead was the only big stone house in the 
neighborhood. It had once been the residence of Gen- 
eral Peter B, Porter, who had been Secretary of War in 
the Cabinet of John Quincy Adams. It is quite pos- 
sible that Grove, with his keen, adaptable mind, felt for 
the first time, in these surroundings of historical gran- 
deur, a new spur to his ambitions. Here he found a 
larger library than he had ever had access to, and he 
became Mr. Allen's assistant in completing a book called 
the "American Herd Book," a work in many volumes of 
which his uncle was the author. For years Mr. Allen 
had prided himself upon the fine cattle he raised on a 
farm at Grand Island. In the preface of the fifth 
volume of the "American Herd Book," which was 
published six years after Grove came to live with his 
uncle, the author wrote : 

"I take pleasure in expressing my acknowledg- 
ment of the kindness, industry, and ability of my young 
friend and kinsman, Grover Cleveland, of Buffalo, a 
gentleman of the legal profession." 

Mr. Allen found Grover Cleveland during these years 
a young man "with quietness of intellect, a ready mind 



GROVER CLEVELAND 161 

that was always accurate. He was unusually prompt. 
His chief recreation was fishing and shooting." 

His uncle clothed him and boarded him and paid 
him a return for his work on the hook. He became 
attached to him, and he found him a place in a law- 
yer's office. Grover Cleveland's first important demon- 
stration of that independence of character for which 
he was conspicuous happened at this time. 

"Grover, you'd better go up and see Hibbard," his 
uncle said to him one day, referring to a lawyer in 
Buffalo. He went, and came back without any com- 
ment. He was a high-spirited boy, and Mr, Hibbard 
said something he didn't like. He got up without a 
word and walked out of his ofiice. 

He began his career in the law in the office of Rogers, 
Bowen and Rogers, in Buffalo, with slight if any en- 
couragement from members of the firm. When his 
uncle first mentioned the young man's abilities to 
Mr, Rogers, the senior member, he said they didn't 
want any one in the office. "However, we like smart 
boys," he added. "Anyhow, there's a table he can 
start at." 

That table in Mr. Rogers's office was where Grover 
Cleveland began his climb to the seat of the Chief 
Magistrate of the Nation. 

The first morning that young Cleveland sat down at 
the empty table, Mr. Eogers took up a copy of Black- 
stone and put it on the table in front of him. 

"That's where they all begin," he said to the young 
man. Cleveland walked the two miles back and forth 
from his uncle's house to the office every day, arriving 



162 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

punctually at nine o'clock in the morning, no matter 
what the weather might be. After he had been there 
some time, his uncle asked him about his work. 

''How are you getting along at the office, Grover?" 

"Pretty well, sir ; only they don't tell me anything," 
he replied. The young man used his brains and 
found out everything for himself. From boyhood till 
he was a man Grover Cleveland worked for wages, 
and earned them. When he was twenty-three he had 
given just four years of study and preparation to pass 
the examination that admitted him to the bar. 

It was during the four years that followed, in which 
Grover Cleveland remained with the same firm of 
lawyers, that he gradually established that trait in 
his character which dominated his official acts in 
Washington, — intellectual integrity. In other words, 
he would never express an opinion until he knew 
thoroughly all the facts, then he would arrive at a 
conclusion for himself that no one could alter. 

What he was as a boy, he became as a man, unpre- 
tentious. It is well known that he was an able law- 
yer, and yet he would never make any show of his 
ability, as other lawyers did, to get ahead. He ac- 
cepted no social engagements in Buffalo that might 
have helped him. He couldn't do a thing that he did 
not sincerely believe in, and society was something he 
never cared for. ISTor could he ever declare himself 
a man eligible for any office. His first public appoint- 
ment was made for him by his fellow lawyers m Buf- 
falo, who offered him the post of Assistant District 
Attorney of Erie County, when he was only twenty- 



GROVER CLEVELAND 163 

six years of age. This was in 1863, the time of the 
Civil War. 

To him came a test of character at this time which 
he met with characteristic self-sacrifice. His two 
brothers were already in the Union Army, when, just 
after his appointment as Assistant District Attorney, he 
was drafted. In weighing his duty to the Government 
as a prosecuting officer and his duty to take care of his 
mother and sisters, he decided to send a substitute in 
his place, which enabled him to become the main sup- 
port of the family. 

He was nominated by the Democratic State Conven- 
tion in 1805, after three years' service, for District At- 
torney of Erie County, which he accepted only on con- 
dition that he would not be required to do any personal 
canvassing. He showed no political temperament then. 
Because he never sought the promotions in public life 
which came to him so rapidly, Mr. Cleveland was al- 
ways regarded as a lucky man in his elections. His 
record is easily analyzed. It is founded upon his faith- 
ful administration of Buifalo when he was Mayor of 
that city ; upon his square, honest administration as 
Governor of the State ; upon the respect and affection in 
which he was held by troops of friends when he was 
President of the United States; and upon the fear in 
which speculators, money rings, and other enemies of 
good government held him. 

"Admit at once any one who asks to see the Gover- 
nor," he said as he took his seat in the Executive Cham- 
ber in Albany, and thereby established his position in 
politics as a reformer who believed in open doors and 



164 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

no secrets. His record as Governor of New York be- 
came a National symbol of the kind of man the people 
wanted in the White House. 

At the ceremonies in Buffalo in the Executive Man- 
sion he was introduced to the crowd as the next Presi- 
dent of the United States. He was nominated and 
elected to the White House in 1884. Defeated for a 
second term, he was reelected in 1892 and found himself 
in the White House again in 1893. Through long per- 
iods of bitter personal attacks directed against him by 
his political enemies, Mr. Cleveland retained the confi- 
dence and personal esteem of loyal, strong and dis- 
inguished friends. 

The largest influence in his public career that lifted 
him into victory always was his understanding friend- 
ship. He was incapable of violating it, of betraying 
it, of accepting it unless he could give it whole heart- 
edly in return. He was drawn into many complicated 
political traps to entangle his honor, but he remained 
calm and patient through them all. His energy for 
work was untiring. It was his custom in the White 
House to keep his light burning till three in the morn- 
ing, and to be in his office at nine. He had not only 
great physical endurance, but he was unpretentious 
about it as also about any self-assertion except in his 
official capacity. 

He was a loyal friend, a fearless administrator and 
a great President, who held the admiration of his 
political party and the Nation, until his death in 1908, 
at Princeton, N. J., where he lived with his family, in 
retirement, after he left the White House. 



JOHN BURROUGHS 

(1837-1921) 

AMERICA'S GREAT NATURALIST 




JOHN UUKKOUGIIS 



JOHN BUEEOUGHS 

(1837-1921) 

AMERICA'S GREAT NATURALIST 

A MAN born in 1837 who traveled far into the 
strange environment of this twentieth centnry 
brought to it the wisdom and sanity of onr fore- 
fathers. He never really grew up, because at the more 
or less serious age of eighty-three he was still poking 
about in meadow grass to find the nest of some shy 
young song-sparrow or learning without much success to 
paddle a boat up a stream. But in his case it was 
a good thing that he didn't grow up, because he wrote 
beautiful and inspiring thoughts about birds and ani- 
mals and insects and flowers that will make his name, 
John Burroughs, a healing, soothing, sane influence for 
many generations to follow. 

There are not many youthful pictures of this open- 
air philosopher, so that he goes down to posterity ap- 
pearing to us just as he did to a little girl who insisted 
he must be — Santa Clans ; a slim, smallish, compact, 
active man with long white beard, gentle brown eyes, 
and a general impulse of merriment. Like Santa 
Claus, his disposition of dropping at our door such gifts 
of nature-lore as he had gathered along his outdoor 
path of many years has made him known all over tlie 
world. People like to read John Burroughs's books, 

167 



168 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

because he gives them not merely literary quality but 
something useful in their daily lives. 

John Burroughs became a naturalist by force of cir- 
cumstances. His nursery was in the woods, not the 
pretty fenced-in picnic woods of to-day, but the real 
forests where all sorts of birds and animals lived and 
where, like the birds and animals, white men and 
women made the best of it. His son, Julian Bur- 
roughs, a graduate of Harvard, recalls his father's 
account of his boyhood in Roxbury, where, the seventh 
son of a large family, he lived in a house literally 
hewn and furnished from the forest by his father. 

"Ah ! my boy," writes the son, quoting his father's 
reminiscent account of his boyhood, "you never wore 
cowhide boots or a homespun shirt, you don't know 
what discomfort is. The boots were made by the vil- 
lage shoemaker; stiff, heavy things that froze on our 
feet. Often on mornings in cold weather when we 
got to school we would sit around the stove and cry 
while our boots thawed out; and at night, when we 
pulled them off, the skin would come too. It always 
took two of us to get them on in the morning and some- 
times three to get them off. Hiram [his brother] 
would get over us small boys and take hold of the 
boot-straps over our shoulders and we would pull, too, 
and kick with might and main, and at last on would 
come the boot. Father used to grease them with tal- 
low and lampblack; that softened them a little. The 
homespun shirts, when new, almost took the skin off 
your back. They were harsh and of a yellow color at 
first, but with wear and many washings they grew 



JOHN BUEROUGHS 169 

softer and of a gray white. We raised tlie flax our- 
selves, planting a small piece every year; we rottled, 
swingled, and hatcheled it ourselves and the womenfolk 
would spin and weave it and make it up into our 
clothes." 

Who to-day understands the process of turning flax 
into clothes ; what is the meaning of such obsolete words 
as "rottled, swingled, and hatcheled" ? And yet these 
were the foundations of Jolm Burroughs's education, 
the earthbound sources of the gentle naturalist's wis- 
dom. He remembers all the now forgotten factors of 
life in those days of pioneer simplicity. His father 
grew the family's own wool, washing and shearing the 
sheep, carding and spinning the wool. The women 
then took it in hand on their looms and made clothes 
and blankets of it. 

"I remember hearing the buzz of the loom as they 
wove the woolen cloth on long drowsy summer after- 
noons," says John Burroughs. "Mother made dyes and 
dyed the yam herself, a soft, unfading blue." 

Pillows and beds were stuffed with feathers taken 
from the geese. Mittens and socks were knit from- the 
wool taken from the sheep. The kitchen and living 
room were lighted at night by tallow dips, "which 
mother made." It was the only light they had, and 
there was always "a box full of them on the attic stairs." 

The author's father, like other farmers of his period, 
never bought anything. Everything they needed was 
produced on the farm. With obvious pride in his 
brother Hiram, John Burroughs has told how expert 
he was in making ax-handles, ox-yokes, rye cradles. 



170 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

wood sleds. All shingles for the house or barn were 
home-made, as well as Avindow and door frames, boxes, 
chests, window sashes. Nails were sparsely used, since 
iron nails were also hand made and expensive because 
of the iron in them. The boys of John Burroughs's 
boyhood made their own toys and school things such 
as inkwells, copy books, pens, slate pencils, and even 
string. 

"We got a soft slate stone and whittled it into 
slate pencils," John Burroughs tells us. ''We made our 
inkwells by casting them from lead about a cylinder 
of wet, soft wood wrapped in wet paper, digging the 
wood out afterwards. String we made out of tow, our 
trout lines we painstakingly braided from horsehair." 
Of course they made kites, and once, saj^s John, "I 
tied a meadow mouse on a kite to send him aloft, 
thinking it would be a fine thing to let such a lowly 
creature see the world. He came down none the worse 
for his trip, blinking his beady eyes." 

With his grandfather, the boy went trout-fishing, 
and became a master-hand with the rod. "He was a 
great fisherman, was grandfather, he was able to tire 
me out when he was over ninety. He taught me to 
believe in spooks, and ghosts, and witches." The spirit 
of his boyhood, his vision of all outdoors, has ever 
been before his eyes. There was a transition period, 
between the real boyhood in the rough and ready pio- 
neer days in Delaware County, and the other boyhood 
renewed so merrily in the boy's life of his son, Julian. 
In him he lived his boyhood over again, frequently 
puzzled, amused, or disgusted with the progressive habits 



JOHN BURROUGHS 171 

of the boys of the twentieth century. That inter- 
esting period was from 1863 to 1874, his maturity, 
spent as a Government employee in Washington in the 
Currency Department and subsequently as a bank ex- 
aminer. Of these dull incidents in his life there is 
nothing to write of John Burroughs, the disciple of out- 
doors, the author of impressions and texts taken from 
the sky, the trees, the mountains, the woods, the 
streams and all that belong to them. At the age of 
thirty-six he returned to the activities of youth and 
bought land on a farm near West Port, N. Y. The 
land sloped to the edge of the Hudson River, and 
the house was built of stone with a finish of timber. 
John Burroughs hunted for the stone, helped dig it out 
and selected the choicest trees on the mountains. But 
the Hudson didn't belong in his vision of that first boy- 
hood, and of course not at all in his second boyhood. 
There was no recollection of such a great arm of the sea, 
it didn't fit into the perspective of rugged streams and 
mountain waterfalls. He expected much, however, of 
this house because of its proximity to the gi'eat river. 
He bought a sail boat which created a never ending 
source of amusing memories to Mrs. Burroughs, who 
. often related how, after he was swindled in buying this 
boat, and it was stolen, and recovered, and borrowed, 
and neglected, till it became mildewed and the oars 
were lost and broken, she rescued a small piece of can- 
vas, a remnant of the sail, and used it as a foot mat to 
catch the crumbs under baby Julian's chair. 

"Oh ! yes," the author would say on the matter of 
the lost sail boat, "when I came here to live I thought 



172 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

I would spend half my time on the river, having great 
fun, but very soon I lost all interest in it." 

In the nineties, even, John Burroughs had gone back 
to the boyhood of the forties. He was not aware that 
when the trains which he could see across the Hudson 
stopped, it was because a block system controlled them. 
He had not noticed the procession of barges which were 
towed at night up the river. He had so trained his 
senses, however, that he could hear a drumming grouse 
in the breathless silence of the woods while those with 
him could not. He could identify a new bird note 
from the confused concert of bird-song, the new arrival 
in spring, though he might not have heard it for years. 
Birds' nests were as obvious to his keen sight as he 
went through the woods, as lampposts are to the city 
dweller. His eyes and ears were long trained to in- 
terpret sounds and sights almost hidden to us. The 
ease with which he could find a four-leaf clover was 
not luck but simply a training of the eyes to see them. 
It was a training which had been forced upon him in 
those early days of pioneer struggle in the woods of 
Delaware County. The traits of his boyhood returned 
to him increased by maturity of thought. His vision 
had broadened with the years; he saw at a glance all 
that there was outdoors because he loved it all so deeply. 

His education had been of the elementary country 
school, and yet he became an author of fine literary 
feeling and skill. It was a constant source of delight 
to him, when his friends wondered how he had so 
quickly acquired the gift of writing, to inform them 
that he was brought up on a farm. 



JOHN BUEROUGHS 173 

"Best of all, I was a farm boy," he would say, 
"brought up on the farm, and I had it in my blood, I 
guess." 

He was as much a part of the woods as the creatures 
that lived in it ; he could see as far, hear as keenly, 
interpret the language of the forest as well. He went 
to Nature for literary material because he loved to do 
so, and he wrote of it all because he loved it, loved to 
live it all over again in the telling. 

"In writing of a day afield," he once said, "I lived 
over again that day, tasting again the joys of all that I 
had experienced, and trying to make it possible for 
others to experience that joy also." 

The keynote of his work was his love of Nature, and 
out of this wholesome sympathy and knowledge came 
a sympathy for good literature gained by reading good 
books. His vision was almost as keen in browsing 
among books that held some useful secret for him as it 
was digging into the mysteries of Nature. 

"There is but one way to learn to write," he once 
said, "and that is to write — if you only want to write 
hard enough you will learn. For years I steeped my- 
self in Emerson, I had my being, I lived and thought 
in Emerson, until when I began to write for myself, 
everything that I wrote had an Emersonian flavor. . . . 
Emerson was my college, my textbooks." 

Writing was as much a study of craftsmanship to 
John Burroughs the author, as mowing, or planting, 
or plowing was to him as a farmer. No one could 
swing a scythe with more skill, even when he was 
seventy, and it was his boast that no hired man could 



174 FAMOUS LEADEES OF CHARACTER 

mow so well or so rapidly. But bis fever for books 
began wben be was a boy and be asked bis fatber for 
raoney to buy an algebra. His fatber did not know 
wbetber an algebra was a book or a new toy. He re- 
fused at first, but wben later be offered to buy tbe 
book, tbe boy's blood was up and be decided to be inde- 
pendent and get it bimself. He raised tbe money by 
tapping tbe maple trees early in tbe spring for tbe first 
sugar sap. Tbis be boiled on tbe kitcben stove, and 
making some small cakes of very fine wbite sugar, 
be peddled tbem in tbe village. He often recalled witb 
pride bow one year be earned "tbree dollars, all in silver, 
and I bought a little double-barreled sbotgun, a crude, 
weak little tbing made by some country blacksmitb, 
but it gave me untold delight and made me envied by 
every boy in Roxbury. One barrel was bigger than the 
other and one was not straight, yet sometimes it would 
go off, and I killed gray squirrels, rabbits, and some 
partridges with it. I wish I had it now." 

When John Burroughs was seventeen be taught in 
a country school and with bis earnings bought the books 
that were tbe influences of his career. Often be trudged 
home with tbem miles over the mountains on an empty 
stomach, because he didn't have enough money left over 
to pay fares or buy supper. These books were kept by 
the author till he was an old man. Sometimes be would 
open one of these books bought in his early boyhood, 
and gently turn over tbe pages that inspired bis author- 
ship later on. Locke's essay on tbe "Human Under- 
standing" was one of these books purchased in bis teens. 
Books were tbe outstanding milestones of bis life. He 



JOHN BURROUGHS 175 

said to bis son, one day, thinking no doubt of the rela- 
tion of books to bis boybood : 

"And once wben some one gave fatber one of my 
books, tbey say tbat as be took it in bis bands tears 
came into bis eyes." 

In tbe eighties, be started an industry apart from 
autborsbip, tbat of raising Delaware grapes. His wife, 
Ursula Nortb, wbom be married wben be was about 
twenty, was bis boon companion in tbis as in all bis 
ventures. His bealtb bad been failing, but it was com- 
pletely restored by tbe outdoors and tbe exercise of tbis 
undertaking. For years tbe grape farm supplied a 
good revenue, tben a bligbt of birds came, especially 
orioles, and destroyed tbe crop. 

Tbe author built himself a rustic, bark-covered study 
just beyond the bouse at ^'Riverby," on the top of the 
bill and there for many years be did most of his writing. 
In cold weather be split firewood, carrying it in himself, 
with tbe comment tbat it gave him double beat. Most 
of tbe furniture for the bouse and study was made by 
tbe author, made entirely by hand from the rugged 
native oak. Some of tbe pieces be carved and deco- 
rated. 

There were three "homes" which John Burroughs 
built, — the house overlooking tbe Hudson, "Riverby" ; 
tbe house intentionally built where the Hudson could 
not be seen, "Slabsides" ; and "Woodchuck" built on 
the site of bis boyhood home at Roxbury. 

Tbe list of his books is a long one. His stories of 
the outdoor inhabitants he studied and lived with so 
many years are full of philosophies and straightfor- 



176 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

ward hints to the inner lives of men. While he appears 
to have spent a great deal of his time interviewing birds, 
or woodchucks or squirrels, he must have seen out of 
the corner of his eye many other things, complicated 
things in the character of men, for his writings indicate 
an uncanny wisdom, a keen sympathy with his fellow- 
man. He preferred the society of plain people who had 
something to say, to that of grand people who just were 
fine to look at. He enjoyed the friendship of the leaders 
among all classes of men. The late Theodore Roose- 
velt was one of his fellow campers. 

At sixty he writes his boy Julian, who is away at 
Harvard, a letter that shows just how deep, and kind, 
and humble a man John Burroughs was : 

November, 1897 
Dear Julian — If you look westward now across New Eng- 
land, about seven o'clock in the evening, you will see a light 
again in my study window — a dim light there on the bank of 
the great river — dim even to the eye of faith. If your eye is 
sharp enough you will see me sitting there by my lamp, nib- 
bling at books and papers, or dozing in my chair, or wrapped 
in deep meditation. If you could penetrate my mind you 
would see that I am often thinking of you and wondering 
how your life is going at Harvard and what fortune has in 
store for you, I found my path from the study grass-grown, 
obliterated. It made me sad. Soon, soon, I said, all the 
paths I have made in this world will be overgrown, neglected. 
I hope you may keep some of them open. The paths I have 
made in literature, I hope you may keep open and make 
others of your own. . . ." 

The dominant force of John Burroughs's character 
was humility. 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 

(1850 ) 

DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 




Copyright by Harris & Ewing 

HENRY CABOT LODGE 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 

(1850 ) 

DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 

THE disadvantages of culture to a political career 
have been acknowledged by politicians them- 
selves. For some more or less obvious reasons, 
culture has been looked upon with suspicion by political 
masters, but the study of politics as a science has not 
been convincingly written. There is a general im- 
pression that it does not lend itself to scientific control. 
The rise of Henry Cabot Lodge from the remote obscur- 
ity of culture to the leadership of the Republican Party 
in the Senate, is therefore a singular triumph over such 
handicaps as literary tastes impose on political life. 

Senator Lodge is a human symbol of New England 
integrity of thought and action, as well as a dis- 
tinguished example of its cultured inheritance. He is 
an inspiring combination of Hai'vard and politics. 

In his slim, alert, commanding stature is reflected the 
historic democracy of New England at its best. He 
represents no one-sided traditions, his literary accom- 
plishments as a historian and writer are supplemented 
with an interest in American politics that suggests those 
dual traits in the Puritan ancestors which made them 

attend church with a loaded musket in one hand and a 

179 



180 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

prayer-book in the other. Of course, in those pre-Revo- 
lution days the musket was a defensive weapon. 
There were Indians who refused to live in peace with 
the white settlers, consequently the musket was neces- 
sary in a practical persuasion of objectionable policies. 
Mr. Lodge has not actually carried a musket in his 
political affairs for the iSTation, but it has been gener- 
ally conceded among his political enemies that he is 
exceptionally well armed in case of surprise. There 
is a gentleness about the cultured Bostonian that de- 
mands respect, but his culture is misleading in that he 
also possesses that New England faculty for rock-bound 
principles of opinion, political or otherwise, that he will 
not yield. 

The Cabots, of the pioneer leading families in 'New 
England, have been at the head of the social and cul- 
tured life of Boston for generations. The first his- 
torical work Mr. Lodge wrote was the "'L'de and Letters 
of George Cabot," perhaps his best book. 

George Cabot was one of the first Senators from 
Massachusetts under President Adams. This was dur- 
ing the stormy period of construction in 1800-1815 
and the States Rights movement had just begun, when 
the Federalist Party was in the political field. Sena- 
tor Henry Cabot Lodge inherits the principles of 
ISTational character which his ancestors brought with 
them from England, an ideal of self-government which 
was crystallized in the Constitution. Anything that 
stands in the way of American independence, of equal 
rights, is instinctively, inherently objectionable to him. 
Even in boyhood he took into his own hands any issue 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 181 

that deprived him of personal liberty, as the following 
anecdote implies : 

People passing the spacious grounds of a house that 
stood at the corner of Sumner and Winthrop Streets in 
Boston, on a certain day in 1855, would have seen a 
group of little boys playing tag over the grass. The 
lilac bushes were heavy with white fragrant blossoms, 
the birds were singing their loudest, and altogether it 
was a peaceful, joyous scene. The great trees almost 
hid the big stone house which stood far back from the 
street. It was one of the first houses in Boston, and 
was owned by Mr. Henry Cabot, head of one of the 
best families in New England. His son-in-law, Mr. 
John E. Lodge, and Mrs. Lodge, Cabot's daughter, lived 
there too. Among the boys running about the private 
grounds was their son, Henry Cabot Lodge, who had 
been born in the big house. 

On the side of the house, in the middle of a lawn, 
stood the statue of a nymph. It Avas a great deal in 
the way when there were many boys playing on the 
grounds, and besides it was rather old and dilapidated. 
Boys don't usually care much about statues, especially 
when they are in the way and no longer new. Sud- 
denly Cabot said to the others, 

"Let's push it over." 

No sooner said than done. They all seized the old 
statue and pushed it off the pedestal. It fell to the 
ground, and only the soft turf saved it from breaking 
into little pieces. They all ran out of the gate, and 
Cabot with them. 

Soon afterwards Cabot's grandfather said to him : 



182 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Look at that big boy, five years old, and he can't 
read yet." 

The boy had been reproved for pushing down the 
statue and perhaps it quickened his going to school 
which happened the following winter. 

The school selected for the boy was conducted by a 
Mrs. Parkman. Her connections with Puritan origin 
had been examined and found to be of the best, so the 
good people of Boston sent their sons there to come un- 
der an important influence of their lives. She was very 
highly trusted for her discretion, her perception of 
character, and her ability to arouse the intellectual 
faculties of very young boys. It was a private school, 
an extension of the classes she held for the education 
of her own son. 

Like the average boy, he did not regard Mrs. Parkman 
with anything but the average annoyance that a school 
teacher causes most boys. Only years later, after he 
was married, did he renew her acquaintance and 
recognize her delightful gifts. The chief thing Mrs. 
Parkman did for Cabot was to exercise his mind, for 
her invariable advice to her pupils in class was this: 

"Use your mind. I don't care what you answer, 
if you only use your mind." Apparently, Cabot did 
this, to the disgust of some of his schoolmates, for he 
discovered one day, that he was known to them as 
"a miserable little dig," which meant that he was a 
hard worker at school, the kind of a boy who was al- 
ways "digging" instead of "playing." This was noth- 
ing a hasty opinion, however, for Cabot soon found 
that he could learn very easily and so have more time 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 183 

for enjoyment. He never liked school, and even in 
the later years of his life, he did not believe in it. 

"That talk about one's happy school-days is a fal- 
lacy," he wrote, remembering them when he was a 
Senator, One of his classmates summed up the prin- 
cipal advantage of his education when he wrote him: 

"After all, we were pretty well educated ; we learned 
to swim and ride, to box and fence, and handle a boat." 
Still, the education of a boy in Boston was never com- 
plete unless he was graduated from Harvard, and that 
could not be done without accumulating a depth of 
culture that stayed with the young man all his life. 

Henry Cabot Lodge was fortunate as a boy in his 
environment. His grandfather Henry Cabot was one 
of the leading men of the day, an aristocrat in blood 
with a patriotic sympathy for the democratic future of 
America. His father was one of the wealthy shipping 
merchants of Boston, building many of his own ships 
in the Medford ship yards and sending them from 
Boston around the world. Among Mr. Lodge's earli- 
est recollections were these ships which he could see 
from the window of his father's ofBce which was at 
the very end of Commercial Wharf, They were the 
graceful, beautifully modeled clipper ships that were 
soon replaced by big steamers. Even their names 
inspired the boy's imagination with the adventure they 
suggested. They were called Argonaut, Kremlin, 
Storm King, The Cossack and two were named after 
a favorite book of his father, Don Quixote and Sancho 
Panza. 

It was a fad among the boys of his set to collect 



184 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

stamps, and they used to gather on the wharf when a 
ship came in from the Orient, and try to buy foreign 
stamps from the sailors. They were careless, however, 
and rarely saved their stamps. Still it was an excuse 
to go down and ask questions about the strange places 
where the sailors had been. 

It might have been that the boy would have grown 
up to be a shipping merchant like his father, for he 
loved the sea, though he never "went to sea" in the 
sense of running away on a ship as some boys did 
who afterwards became famous. He could stand for 
an hour at the window of his father's office and look 
out over the harbor, imagining what it must be like, far 
away, on the other side of the ocean. The sea always 
has been the most fascinating place to him. 

The winters in Boston were not so pleasant as the 
summers, because then the family moved to Nahant, the 
fashionable summer resort of Boston. Here, when 
he was a boy, Cabot Lodge shared the superstition that 
Captain Kidd had buried his treasure along that coast, 
and he discovered a cave full of mystery. There was 
only a crack through which he could see inside, but when 
he looked there, it was pitch dark. He used to tease 
his companions by telling them that he had found a 
secret entrance, and then he described the wonderful 
things he saw inside. Once he found an old musket 
and told the boys he had managed to get it out of the 
mysterious cave, but one of the boys told his father 
and his father said the musket probably belonged in 
some attic. After that he gave up these imaginary 
visits to the cave. 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 185 

He loved the sea, swimming in it, then lying on the 
hot rocks in the sun till he was hrown as an Indian. 
He was given a sail boat when he was thirteen and un- 
der the direction of a boatman learned to sail it him- 
self. One day he and a companion managed to slip 
away from the wharf without the boatman, and were 
tacking across the bay when a big schooner yacht, 
The Idler, came skimming in from the ocean. The 
sails of the big yacht took the wind out of the small 
sail of his own boat, and he and the other boy found 
themselves suddenly losing way, unable to get out of 
the course of the large boat. A man on the big yacht 
rushed to the bow, and yelled to them: "Jump over- 
board !" Believing that he knew best what to do, they 
obeyed and jumped into the water. While Cabot was 
jumping down, he wondered if he would come up right 
under the yacht, -but he didn't. He came to the sur- 
face just alongside and was picked up. His little 
boat was pushed out of the way and was afterwards 
towed in shore. His friend, Frank Chadwick, was 
saved by jumping into the water too, because he could 
swim. He and Russell Sullivan, afterwards a well 
known author, were together a great deal, especially 
at the theater. They usually went to minstrel shows. 
The first great play Cabot saw was "Julius Caesar" to 
which he went because his grandfather, Henry Cabot, 
insisted that it was necessary he should. So he went 
and saw four great actors at once: E. L. Davenport, 
Edwin Booth, Lawerence Barrett and John McCul- 
lough. The play he and Russell Sullivan liked best was 
"Colleen Bawn," an Irish play. Cabot was so im- 



186 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

pressed with it that he wrote a version of it and gave 
a performance in his house for some boys and the 
servants. The theater in those days was not considered 
a very good place to go. 

His reading at this time was the novels of Mayne 
Reid, the "Arabian Nights," the ''Swiss Family Robin- 
son/' ''Tanglewood Tales," and the stories of Charles 
Dickens, Washington Irving, and Captain Marryat. 
He was particularly fond of Homeric poetry and es- 
pecially of Scott's "The Lady of the Lake," and then 
on the sly he read Beadles' dime-novels, the first yellow- 
back thrillers published. They were really very harm- 
less and full of adventure, but atrociously written and 
without any art. And, of course he went to church, 
but he made an agreement with his mother to let him 
read his Bible during the sermon so that he would not 
fall asleep, and she agreed. 

He went from Mrs. Parkman's school to another 
school kept by Mr. Dixwell. He was about eleven 
years old then, and in that year his father died very 
suddenly. This was when the country was very much 
disturbed over the slave question, and he had heard 
his father talking against the South which wanted to 
keep the blacks in slavery. His father was called a 
black Republican as were all Republicans who wanted 
to have the slaves freed. That's what Abraham Lin- 
coln was called before he became President. The boy 
naturally became a black Republican too. All boys 
of his age were necessarily excited by the slave ques- 
tion, which brought about the secession of so many 
Southern States, and finally the Civil War. There 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 187 

were constant excitement and restlessness in the conn- 
try, so that when he was eleven years old, Henry Cabot 
Lodge became a very solid Republican. He did not 
know then that he would become the leader of the 
Republican Party in the United States Senate; but he 
was decided enough then to be so, if he had been old 
enough. 

Among the most vivid memories of the boy was the 
great torchlight procession in Boston just before the 
election in 1860. The Common was filled with flash- 
ing lights and thousands of young men marched with 
torches. They were known as the "Wide-awakes," and 
many of them went later to the war with muskets on 
their shoulders. These were the pioneers of the many 
other political parades he saw in after life, though he 
once said that he hoped the time would come when 
people would think more and shout less over their 
political celebrations. He always remembered that the 
first blood of the Civil War was spilled by the Sixth 
Regiment of Massachusetts, which, while passing 
through Baltimore on its way to Washington, was 
mobbed and had to fight its way through the streets to 
the depot where many soldiers were killed. 

The influence of the Civil War excited his feeling, 
which was always deeply attached to the Government 
of the United States, and strengthened his political 
views that the Republican Party was the only one 
capable of maintaining law and order in the country. 
If this had not happened, he would have become a 
dreamer, a cultured man of letters only, instead of a 
political power in the country. He had an optimism 



188 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

about America when a hoj, a belief that the issue of 
the Civil War would strengthen the United States 
Government, and it did. His Republican sympathies 
were inspired by the policies of Lincoln. He fully ex- 
pected to join the army, for it looked as though the 
Civil War would last till he was old enough. But it 
didn't. 

When he was sixteen he made his first trip to 
Europe in a side-wheel steamer called the Africa. 
He went with his mother and sister and a tutor who 
was engaged to teach him while they traveled. This 
was the son of Rear-Admiral Davis, Constant Davis, a 
Harvard graduate, who wielded a great influence on 
his character. He was an inspiring companion as well 
as a cultured teacher. 

At Harvard, which he entered when he was seven- 
teen, Henry Cabot Lodge found himself in a period of 
Harvard's reconstruction. A new era of education be- 
gan at that time, which changed the old college system 
of its President, Thomas Hill, and brought about the 
appointment of Dr. Eliot in that capacity. Dr. Eliot 
favored a modern university system, whereas Dr. Hill 
clung to the old traditions, Cabot Lodge was the last 
student to read the "mock parts," a satire on the Ex- 
hibitor classes. His few years at Harvard developed 
his inclination to be a scholar, especially a writer. 
The most important influence on his character was the 
course in English Literature with Professor -Tames 
Russell Lowell, and another more difficult one in med- 
iaeval History with Henry Adams. His amusements 
were sparring, single-stick exercises, and broadsword 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 189 

practice and he was very popular in the dramatic 
societies. Mr. Lodge is remembered for his perform- 
ance of a Yorkshireman in a comedy. He became a 
member of the old and well-known Hasty Pudding Club 
of Harvard. It was then the custom among students to 
pay for the privilege of being "supers" in grand opera, 
so as to get behind the scenes. On one occasion he 
assisted in carrying off one of the characters who was 
supposed to be dead, and they lifted the poor man so 
strenuously that they almost- tore him apart. College 
"supers" were privileged, however, and they had their 
way of getting fun out of the "job." 

Immediately after his graduation, in fact the follow- 
ing day, he married the sister of his tutor. Miss Davis. 
They went to Europe on their honeymoon and saw 
Paris in ruins just after the Franco-German War. 

At twenty-two he seems to have lost his political fire 
in literary ambition, for on his return from Europe he 
was advised by Henry Adams to devote himself to his- 
torical books. This meant a great deal of hard re- 
search work. He stuck to the tiresome job, working 
just as hard as necessity compelled him. In addition 
he took a course at the Harvard Law School. He 
never intended to practice law, though he was admitted 
to the bar in Boston, and spent a year in the office of 
the brother of Associate Justice of Supreme Court 
Grey. 

"There is nothing better than the law for mental 
training," he said once. 

One day Henry Adams, who had become editor of 
the North American Review, offered him a place 



190 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAEACTER 

on the staff as associate editor. Cabot Lodge has said 
that no honor that came to him in after life was so im- 
portant as this one. 

"Come to think of it," he said in after years, "I 
received no pay, but I was glad to have the place, be- 
cause it gave me a chance to do literary work, and I was 
glad of the opportunity." 

Henry Adams became his mentor in literature, and 
advised him to study Swift for simplicity of style. 
The first article he had printed in the magazine was a 
review of a book and he rewrote it eight times. It 
was three years before he saw a long article of his 
printed in the North Americaii Review, — an essay 
on the life of Alexander Hamilton. He thought at 
this time that he would become a historian, almost de- 
ciding to make literature his career. His first book, 
printed when he was twenty-seven, was "Life and Let- 
ters of George Cabot." This was the story of his great- 
grandfather who was a Senator and was offered 
the appointment of Secretary of the Navy in the Cab- 
inet of John Adams, which he declined. Then followed 
"A Short History of the English Colonies of America." 
The book was made up of written lectures delivered 
at the Lowell Institute in Boston. In six years' time 
appeared four exhaustive historical works, including 
"The Life of Washington" in two volumes, and the 
"Life of Alexander Hamilton" in one volume. 

Such is the record of literary industry and achieve- 
ment which has established Henry Cabot Lodge as a 
historian of note. Since then, despite his active career 
in political life, he has written other books and many 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 191 

magazine articles of distinction and great literary 
charm. 

From his college days Mr. Lodge was "in politics." 
Political life and public issues challenged his well 
trained mind. Though a student and a writer, he was 
never a book-worm. He absorbed to give out to 
others. 

Two terms he served in the Massachusetts State 
Legislature; was defeated for the Senate, but took up 
political activity against Benjamin Butler, when the 
"Greenbacker" ran for Governor in 1883. Mr. Lodge 
was sent to the Chicago Republican JSTational Convention 
in 1884 where he began his close political and literary 
friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, who was nine 
years after him at Harvard, and was a delegate from 
New York to the convention. He was elected to the 
House of Representatives, and soon after to the United 
States Senate. He has been in the United States 
Senate since 1893, and was placed in nomination for 
the Presidency by Theodore Roosevelt in 1016. Al- 
ways a forceful figure in the Senate, his speeches are 
models of elegance of diction, abounding in historic 
lore. The signial triumph of his career as a Senator 
was his long fight for the historic policy of the United 
States against foreign entanglement, which led to the 
defeat of the League of Nations in the United States 
Senate and the downfall of Woodrow Wilson's political 
life. 



WOODROW WILSON 

(1856 ) 

EDUCATOR — WAE PRESIDENT 
STATESMAN 




Copyright by Harris 8; Ewing 

WOODROW \\'ILSOX 




WOODROW WILSON 

(1856 ) 

EDUCATOR — WAR PRESIDENT — 
STATESMAN 

■OODROW WILSON in 1922, with a con- 
temporaneous vision of his brilliant life be- 
fore ns, seems to have reached a place in 
American history that entitles him to comparison Vv^ith 
the great leaders of national crises that have gone be- 
fore. He emerges from the mists of political jealousy 
and private hatreds, with which his public life was em- 
bittered, beyond the rocks. Future generations can be 
relied upon to show him such honor and respect as his 
public service to the Nation deserves, the credit due all 
men who have tried to meet the issues of their time with 
progressive intellectuality, with personal courage. If 
this sketch were written a hundred years from now, 
one could say that what Washington did for the free- 
dom of the Colonies, Wilson did for the intellectual 
freedom of his country. But, to-day, we are still in the 
scorching heat of political passions that surrounded 
him, that will not cool long enough for non-partisan 
opinion. He stands to-day, however, as the man who 
projected a great vision of National idealism embodied 
in the purposes of the League of Nations; as a great 
orator, as an intellectual leader of new principles in- 

195 



196 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

volving our international obligations. The best one 
can do in this handicap of the present-day oblique 
vision on the public life of Woodrow Wilson, is to set 
down these intimate biographical facts, that in their 
smallest details will grow large in the magnifying 
process of posterity. 

There are three decades, three periodic degrees of 
experience, in President Wilson's life that are distinct 
and separate. These are the boyhood days, that might 
be those of any American boy; the college days, when 
he adopted the profession of teaching and became the 
foremost educator and leader at the head of a great 
university; and the distinguished culmination of all 
preceding years — the days which brought him to the 
highest office in the land, not once, but twice. Those 
who found fault with him because he indulged in sud- 
den inconsistencies of act and word during the up- 
heaval of world conditions through which he main- 
tained a conspicuous leadership, overlook the fact that 
Mr. Wilson was not a product of the colonial period, 
but a man riding always on the high wave of modern 
tides that change swiftly, suddenly. Stubbornness 
would have engulfed him; his struggle was not 
against public opinion, but with it. His expert 
foresight compelled him to reverse his position as a 
strong swimmer is watchful of new currents in deep 
waters. The slogan of his political enemies, "He kept 
us out of war," was the hope for a world-peace deep in 
him, but when National honor demanded, he accepted 
the inevitable challenge of war. 

He was born on the edge of the Civil War, and there 



WOODROW WILSON 197 

was branded in his impressionable childish years a hor- 
ror of war. 

Seated on the gate-post of an old-fashioned red brick 
house on one of the shaded streets of a sleepy Southern 
town, Staunton, Virginia, where he was bom, the fu- 
ture War-President of the greatest war the world has 
ever known noticed two men, strangers in town, com- 
ing along the street. The men paid no attention to 
him, and as he sat there, his legs dangling, they stopped 
suddenly. One of the men, sticking his fist in the 
face of the other, said : 

"Lincoln will be elected; when he is, we'll have 
war." 

The boy, knowing what war meant and realizing 
from the excited, violent way in which the man spoke, 
that it must be something teiTible, something that he 
wanted to know more about, dashed into the house 
and went straight to his father, to ask him what the 
men meant. 

Wlienever there was anything he wanted to know, he 
went to his father, who was always ready to tell him 
anything, and always knew the answer. 

"Tommy," his father said to him, "Mr. Lincoln wants 
us in the South to free the slaves, and he will send 
the soldiers down here to make us do it. We shall 
have to defend ourselves, and that will make a civil 
war. Now run along, and let me work on my ser- 
mon." 

Tommy went down stairs again, sternly, thinking 
hard, trying to imagine what a civil war would be 
like. He never knew, because Augusta, where he 



198 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

lived, was never invaded by the ^Northern Army. Gen- 
eral Sherman passed it by. Once it was said that he 
would come, and the doors of the red brick house were 
kept locked all day and the lamp in the hall remained 
lighted all night. 

In the abstract war was something useless, terrible, 
to the future War-President, as a child. Principles be- 
hind war were the important things to Woodrow Wilson, 
who, when he was Governor of New Jersey, at the out- 
set of his career, said in an address : 

"When I was a very young child, when I could 
hardly read, there fell into my hands a book, which 
perhaps few of the youngest members of the Senate 
have had occasion to see, that was entitled 'The Life of 
Washington,' by Weems. I recall having thought even 
then, child as I was, that something doubtless more 
than common must have been possessed by that cause 
for which our fathers fought." 

As a boy he was imaginative. Once he invented a 
character for himself, which for days and months he 
secretly lived. Ho "made believe" that he was an 
Admiral in the Navy, and he wrote long reports to an 
imaginary Navy Department. That was when he was 
almost fifteen years old, and he signed these reports 
"Admiral Wilson." One of them described how he 
led a successful expedition in the Southern Pacific ocean 
against a nest of pirates. He "made believe" that 
the Government had been terrorized by the seizure of 
the vessels at sea. "Admiral Wilson" was ordered to 
investigate, and he told in the reports how he finally 
trailed them in the vicinity of an uncharted island. 



WOODROW WILSON 199 

captured the pirate fleet, and after some mention of 
his heroic leadership, reported their total destruction. 
He had learned about ships and navigation from books 
he had been reading. During the greater part of sev- 
eral months ''Tommy" lived in his waking hours in 
the character he had himself invented. 

When he was seventeen, he went to Davidson College 
in North Carolina. It was a college with strong Pres- 
byterian tendencies. The living quarters were primi- 
tive in the extreme. The boys cleaned their own rooms, 
filled their oil lamps (there were no electric lights 
then), chopped their own fire-wood and carried it to 
their rooms. He developed the habit of taking long 
walks alone in the country at this time, though he was 
popular with his college mates and would talk eagerly 
on any subject. 

His nickname at the college was "Monsieur Mouton.'^ 
It was fastened on him because he was asked by a 
teacher in class, "What is calves' meat when served on 
the table?" and he answered hastily, "Mutton." 

He was taken ill in college and had to return home. 
He spent the following year at home tutoring in Greek 
and kindred studies in preparation for entering Prince- 
ton. It had been the favorite university for the South^ 
but the Civil War had made it impossible for the usual 
number of Southern boys to go there on account of the 
expense. There were only twenty other Southern stu- 
dents when Woodrow Wilson entered Princeton when 
he was nineteen. But he brought no war-sentiment 
with him, as so many yoimg men from the South did. 
He had no sectional feeling that he ever expressed. 



200 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

The day be arrived, he declared himself in an argu- 
ment on the campus, — a Democrat. 

He was a very positive type of a young man with, 
the manners and. speech of a gentleman. He was 
thoughtful and used good English, so that he soon 
had a reputation in the college for being well read and 
of sound judgment. He bad suddenly grown up 
to be a young man of prominence on the campus. Ho 
had come to Princeton to find out what career be should 
choose, and he found it on the shelves of the Chan- 
cellor Green Library, in a bound volume of the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, the famous literary publication issued 
in London and originally started by Dr. Samuel John- 
son. These magazines contained the parliamentary re- 
ports of debates and in the department of "Men and 
Manners in Parliament" Woodrow Wilson found the in- 
spiration of his life work — that of statesmanship. 

In the elm groves, along the shaded streets of Prince- 
ton, young Woodrow Wilson would saunter, his mind 
full of what he had read in the Gentleman's Magazine. 
To him in these days, John Bright, Disraeli, Gladstone, 
great leaders in the iSTational affairs of Great Britain, 
were giants, — just as Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Or- 
lando, aaid he himself were giants of statesmanship to 
the young men of Princeton many years later. ISToth- 
ing could have influenced the career of a young man so 
much as those clever articles he read about the English 
Parliament. 

He wasted no time or thought at Princeton upon any 
studies but those about government, the history of gov- 
ernment, the theory of it, and the lives of great politi- 



WOODROW WILSON 201 

cal leaders. He wrote a great deal to improve his style, 
learned short-hand, and joined the debating societies 
where he could practice extemporaneous speaking. He 
joined the ''Whig Society" and became one of its lead- 
ing speakers. He realized that elocution was impor- 
tant, and he would go out into the woods and declaim to 
himself. On his vacation he spent a great deal of 
time in his father's church, reading aloud to himself 
and making speeches to the empty pews. In fact, he 
organized a debating society called the Liberal Debat- 
ing Club, which was conducted on the rules of the Brit- 
ish Parliament. The writers who inspired him in his 
study of speaking and statemanship were Chatham, 
Burke, Brougham. Burke was his mainstay. He did 
not neglect college sports either, for in '78-'79 he was 
president of the Athletic Committee, the coach of foot' 
ball, and was a -member of the Baseball Association. 

In his Senior year he wrote his first serious article, 
which was accepted by one of the best magazines. It 
was called "Cabinet Government in the United States" 
and was signed Thomas W. Wilson. He was then 
twenty-two years old. 

He went from Princeton to tlie law department of the 
University of Virginia. In the quiet and pleasant 
surroundings of Charlottesville he did a great deal of 
writing, besides studying law. His article on John 
Bright attracted such attention that he made a speech 
which drew the largest crowd from outside which the 
university had ever known. He matriculated in law, 
and when he was twenty-six, he opened a law office in 
Atlanta. He paid much more attention, however, to 



202 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

writing than he did to the small practice he had. He 
was then writing a book, "Congressional Government, a 
Study in American Politics," which was published three 
years later. Deciding that an unknown lawyer in At- 
lanta had little chance of making a public career, he 
dissolved his partnership and went to Johns Hopkins 
University to spend two or three years in the study of 
Political Science. An essay he wrote at the time, "A 
Study of Adam Smith," brought the young man further 
fame. It was published in a magazine, and subse- 
quently grouped in a book called "An Old Master, and 
Other Political Essays," by Woodrow Wilson. 

After leaving Johns Hopkins University, he accepted 
the position of assistant professor of history at Bryn 
Mawr, a young ladies' college. After a short period as 
professor at another college, he went back to Princeton 
(where he was graduated), as professor of Political 
Science. 

.When Dr. Woodrow Wilson resigned his post as the 
President of Princeton, to accept the nomination of the 
Democratic Party for Governor of New Jersey, he was 
regarded as a victim of deluded ambition. The country 
did not know that he had been training for twenty years, 
for the work that was before him. He had written 
among other books interpreting National history and 
affairs, a book on "Constitutional Government." The 
intensity of his secret passion for political reform soon 
made him a world-figure, for he fulfilled his pre-election 
promises, an event which was without the rank and file 
of political precedent. The "bosses" felt that they 
could count upon him, and their misguided confidence 



WOODROW WILSON 203 

was nidely awakened when he kept a promise he made 
to the people to act as their representative and not as 
the political tool of the bosses. Shortly after he took 
office as Governor of New Jersey, he served notice on 
the Democratic bosses that they were out, ''and they will 
stay out, if I have anything to say about it," he added. 
His sjieech of acceptance was a defiance, a declaration 
of political independence. It was an echo of the genius 
of leadership that had been in course of preparation in 
Mr. Wilson for thirty-three years. Politics had been 
his ambition. He was asked how he happened to enter 
political life, when he was on the threshold of his 
career. 

"Why, I suppose I was born a political animal. Al- 
ways, from the first recollections of my youth, I have 
aimed at political life,." he said. Stored-up energy of 
his ambition lifted him almost at once, in the minds 
of his countrymen, to the Presidency. He took ofiice 
for his first term March 4th, 1913, after one of tlie most 
triumphant and sweeping elections ever known. Fac- 
tional war in the Republican Party gave him 435 elec- 
toral votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8. His plural- 
ity over Roosevelt was more than 2,000,000, and nearly 
3,000,000 over Taft. He restored the Democratic 
Party to power from the wilderness where it had been 
banished for sixteen years. He carried with him a 
Democratic majority of five in the Senate and more 
than two-thirds of the House. 

At the outset of hisr career as President of the United 
States he demanded and seized political leadership, 
against political precedent. The leader of the Demo- 



204 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

cratic Party when Mr. Wilson was elected was Mr. 
Bryan. Mr. Bryan had played the leading part in the 
Baltimore Convention. He had materially aided his 
nomination, if not actually nominating him. However, 
Mr. Wilson differed at once in political policy with Mr. 
Bryan. The difficulty of compromise between the 
Democratic leader and the President cropped up in the 
formation of the Cabinet. There entered into the selec- 
tion of its members a powerful V^ilson influence in the 
personality of Colonel House, who had taken a promi- 
nent though non-political part in the President's elec- 
tion. Mr. House remained the most important 
unofficial-official of the Democratic administration. 
Instead of accepting the routine of executive govern- 
ment as his predecessors had done, Mr. Wilson did not 
favor "deserving Democrats." He chose as his advisers 
leaders in thought and ideals, irrespective of political 
creed. Gradually he became the only final arbiter of 
National problems. His power and ability imbued his 
name with an authority never before known in the 
White House. He mastered political traditions, and 
created a progressive government which was tending 
always towards more power for the people, less power 
for the politician, but above all supreme power for the 
President. 

His first foreign problem was with Mexico, inherited 
from the previous administration. In the spring of 
1914 American troops captured Vera Cruz. Carranza 
was recognized in 1915. General Pershing's punitive 
expedition into Mexico took place in 1916. Two years 
before, in August, 1914, the great European war began. 



WOODROW WILSON 205 

The President's efforts were concentrated first on 
peace negotiations between the belligerents. They 
failed utterly, and February 3rd,, 1917, America's diplo- 
matic relations with Germany were severed and we de- 
clared war on April 6th, 1917. On December 4th, 
1918, President Wilson, then in his second term, sailed 
for Europe with the eyes of the world upon him. He 
was received in England, France, Italy, as the savior of 
the people. His fourteen points, a declaration for a 
universal arrangement of world-peace, and his docu- 
ment of allied agreement, the League of Nations, were 
adopted in 1919. He came back for a brief visit to 
America, during which he strengthened as best he could 
the political battle-line, and returned to Paris. 

The treaty was signed in July, 1919, and Mr Wilson 
brought the document back with him and gave it to 
the Senate for ratification. In March, 1920, it was de- 
feated in the Senate, chiefly due to the opposition con- 
ducted by Senator Lodge. During a speaking tour in 
a last strenuous effort to arouse public sentiment in the 
League of Nations, Mr. Wilson broke down and has 
been in ill-health ever since. 

Contemporary sentiment since Mr. Wilson's retire- 
ment is almost unanimous not merely in sympathy with 
him, but in recognition of his genius as a great 
American leader in progressive ideas of world-peace. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(1858-1918) 

THE IDOL OF HIS COUNTRY 




Copyright. 1904, by Pacli T'.ros.. N. V. 

THEODORE ROOSEXELT 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

' (1858-1918) 

THE IDOL OF HIS COUNTRY 

THE story of Theodore Roosevelt," said a writer 
who knew him well, "is the storv of a small 
boy who read about great men and decided he 
wanted to be like them," 

He not only wanted to be, but he became a great man, 
because he was never afraid, never idle, never weakened 
in a crisis, and w^as sure of himself to the last. Self- 
confidence was born in him ; he had that necessary ele- 
ment of self-confidence — fighting blood. 

His childhood was passed in the. house where he was 
born, 28 East 20th Street, New York. He was a New 
Yorker by birth, but a plainsman, a rancher, a hunter 
by inclination. From the day he was born he was 
physically delicate. He was a victim of asthma. His 
nights were sometimes spent sitting up in a chair, be- 
cause he couldn't breathe lying down. But the pain 
and discomfort of this, even when he was a child, 
merely strengthened his fighting spirit. This he in- 
herited from a long line of ancestors, who represented 
the combination of push, imagination, and energy 
which is the inheritance of a hundred million Amer- 
icans. The contrast of the delicate, feeble, studious 
child and the heroic figure Theodore Roosevelt became 

209 



210 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

is the most inspiring proof of just what a boy can do 
for himself if he's got the right stuff in him. 

His father was a successful merchant in ISTew York, 
prosperous, well placed socially, and highly thought of 
by the citizens of that city in the fifties. His home was 
spacious, he was a man of independent fortune. He 
was vigorous, courageous, and exceptionally gentle and 
unselfish. Like his son, his friends were among all 
classes. 

Theodore lived a remote, dreamy sort of life as a 
small boy. Animals attracted his imaginative mind 
first. In the back yard of his aunt's house adjoin.- 
ing, there were a cow, rabbits, peacocks, cats, white 
mice, and hens. These were his inspiration; the 
sources of his talent for thrilling stories which he told 
to his delighted sisters Carrie and Edith. Particularly 
exciting was the story about the man-eating monster 
he called the "zeal." The idea for this masterpiece of 
juvenile fiction came to him as a very real experience. 
Listening obediently to the minister in church, Theo- 
dore heard him say, quoting from the Psalms : 

"For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." 

When he was a child, his mind hungered for adven- 
tures, and these he got from books and from a curiosity 
about things he saw or heard. At the age of nine he 
started a diary. His summers had been spent at Bar- 
rington on tlie Hudson, where his father's summer home 
was. He was presented with a Shetland pony called 
General Grant. His sister always believed that the 
General had been christened after the pony. He was 
a strange, imaginative, creative child, for about this time 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 211 

he began an exhaustive work entitled in his own hand- 
writing, "Natural History on Insects, by Theodore 
Roosevelt, Jr." In his "preface" he wrote in the 
manuscript in his own hand, "All these insects are 
N^ative of E^orth America. Most of the insects are not 
in other books. I will write about ants first." At the 
close of this manuscript, written in a copy book, is a 
strictly personal note to the reader from the author: 

"P. S. My home is in ISTorth Amer-i-ca. All these 
stories are gained by observation. Age nine years. 
Born 27th October." 

When he was eleven years old, a tall, slim boy with 
long spindle legs, he was taken to Europe with his par- 
ents, and retained the attitude of any American boy 
towards a decadent world. He was bored with the 
sights, the art galleries, the cathedrals, the tombs, and 
enjoyed only the museums, especially those of natural 
science and history. This trip made no impression 
on him. It did not disturb his American instinct that 
insisted America was "God's own Country." The 
habits he had acquired of insect study became an em- 
barrassing feature to his parents, and especially to his 
brother, Elliott, who was usually assigned to a room with 
him in hotels. In Vienna, one day, Elliott said to his 
father : 

"Father, do you think it would be extravagant if I 
were now and then to have a room to myself in the 
hotels ?" 

"JSI^ot if you wish it. But why ?" his father asked. 

"Come and see our room," said Elliott. 

There were bottles everywhere, small bottles with 



212 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

muddy water or weeds in them. In the basin were the 
entrails of small animals that Theodore had cleaned to 
prepare as stuffed specimens. He was a "grubby" 
boy was Theodore, wholly intent upon scientific re- 
searches which he refused to surrender. During this 
formative period, he corresponded, with some indica- 
tions of a romantic tendency, with a little girl of his ac- 
quaintance, a friend of his sisters — Edith Carow. In 
a letter written to her from Paris he signs himself, — 
"You are my most faithful correspondent — Ever 
yours — T. Roosevelt." Years later this little girl 
became his second wife, his first being Alice Lee. 

When he was fifteen, he made an important resolu- 
tion. He decided to pursue no dreams that he could 
not put into action. In his boyhood experiences he had 
encountered boys who bullied him, who wanted him to 
fight. Being delicate he had no strength, and only his 
brother Elliott protected him. Once, however, he was 
attacked by two boys and he attempted to retaliate. 
The two boys, realizing that he was weak, didn't hurt 
him, but just mussed him up, tossing him about gently 
and easily. This attitude of compassion, of pity, made 
him furious. He realized then and there that he must 
make himself physically fit to meet the emergencies 
of the kind of man- he wanted to be. He talked it over 
with his father, and was soon at work with an ex-prize 
fighter learning to box. 

When he was fourteen his family took him, with his 
brothers and sisters, to Egypt, hoping the climate would 
do him good. On this trip it looked as though Theo- 
dore Roosevelt would become a professor of insects. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 213 

He became a naturalist, abstracted, serious, dedicated 
to science. He spent most of bis time collecting "speci- 
mens." Tbis obstinacy of character, which drove him 
persistently towards a goal once he had fixed his mind 
upon it, accounts for many of the daring and deter- 
mined events of his life. He spent this winter in 
Egypt studying field mice and especially snakes, and he 
spent it that way with a single-minded devotion that 
nothing could swerve. In the spring, with his mother 
and the rest of the family, his father having returned 
to New York, he went to Carlsbad and finally joined 
some cousins in Dresden. Here, at fifteen, he organ- 
ized the "Dresden Literary American Club." In a 
copy book, the members once a week wrote some liter- 
ary impressions which were read at the end of each 
week. He never forgot tlie charms of these months in 
Dresden, spent in the house of a German family. 

This slender boy, who was wearing glasses then, 
dreamed deeply, but he was also keenly aware of the 
fact that dreams were idle unless they could be put into 
action. This conclusion was deep-rooted in him when 
he was fifteen, and the will to perform the task of mak- 
ing himself a man of action was developing. He made 
up his mind never to bo afraid. 

On his return, the Roosevelt home had changed to 
6 West 5Tth Street, and Theodore spent the winter 
wrestling, boxing, building himself up. For a boy he 
was amazingly wise in foresight ; he saw that he had to 
build up his strength, if he was to amount to anything. 
When he was sixteen his father bought the old rambling 
house at Oyster Bay, which was called "Tranquility." 



214 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Two years later, in a parade of Harvard Freshmen, 
Theodore Roosevelt carried a torch in the streets of 
Boston, and shouted for Hayes, the Republican candi- 
date for President against Samuel Tilden. He couldn't 
vote, but he could shout. The Democrats retaliated, 
and one man threw up a window of a house they were 
passing and yelled, "Shut up, you blooming Fresh- 
men!" The young man with the glasses shook his fist 
in anger at this man, and the other boys asked who 
he was, applauding his spirit. 

His first reform measure was put into execution just 
before he left Oyster Bay for Harvard. He put a 
price on field mice which had become a nuisance. He 
offered five cents apiece, twenty-five cents for a fam- 
ily of them. His sister was left with the important 
task of paying for this gruesome collection. His 
asthma had not left him, but he stuck at his job in 
college. 

With his college associates he maintained a reserve. 
Being a member of one of the oldest Knickerbocker 
families he was entitled to membership in many of the 
best societies and clubs of Harvard. He joined only 
three, but they did not interest him very much. He 
was a strenuous college student. He was an editor of 
the Harvard Advocate, an ofiicer in many social organi- 
zations ; he drove a trap, he rowed, he boxed, he 
wrestled, ran races, taught Sunday School. In the 
summers he hunted in Maine. He danced at all 
parties, took part in college theatricals, and stirred the 
whole Senior class with a sudden ambition to skip the 
rope. He was graduated from Harvard when he was 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 215 

twenty-two, a vigorous, active, determined youth. He 
bad gained much towards the goal he had set himself 
when a boy, the goal of being a man. 

Towards the end of his course at Harvard, he in- 
formed his father that he wanted to be a professor of 
ITatural History. His father consented, provided his 
son would agree to be a real scientist, not a mere dabbler 
in the naturalistic study. He soon found out that the 
job of a professor of Natural Science involved spending 
too much time squinting through a microscope, and he 
gave it up. The influence of Bill Sewall, the back- 
woodsman, upon the life of Theodore Roosevelt, began 
about this time. It was very great, because this big, 
bearded hunter and woodsman resembled the kind of 
man he had thought about in his boyhood. He typi- 
fied the imaginary heroes of his childhood. 

"Take good care of this young fellow," said the man 
who introduced Theodore to Bill Sewall. "He's am- 
bitious and he isn't very strong. He won't say when 
he's tired, he won't complain, but he'll just break 
down." 

The first thing that Bill did for Theodore, when he 
was eighteen, was to take him for a twenty-five mile 
walk, "a good fair walk for any common man," said 
Bill. Theodore tramped the whole distance, and Bill 
concluded he was at least no weakling. This man of 
the woods became Theodore's hero, and he hoped to be- 
come like him, as nearly as possible, in spite of the fact 
that his physician told him, after his graduation in 
1880, that he had heart trouble and must choose a pro- 
fession that would not demand any violent exertion. 



216 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Doctor, I'm going to do all the things you tell me 
not to do," lie said. ''If I've got to live the sort of 
life you describe, I don't care how short it is." 

This was said when he was twenty-two. He married 
in October of that year. The following summer he 
climbed mountains in Switzerland, climbing the Matter- 
horn because an Englishman had boasted that he was 
the only man who had climbed that big mountain. It 
was after his return from his summer in Europe that 
he reached a determination to go into politics. He 
joined the Twenty-First District Republican Associa- 
tion of New York. The decision was not a patriotic 
impulse of service, or an egotistical notion that the coun- 
try must be saved. He joined because he wanted to 
be among those who were doing something in the world. 
He wanted to be among the ''fighters.'' His friends de- 
plored his decision. They told him that politics were 
"low," that it was no position for "a gentleman." He 
was told that only saloon-keepers and horse-car conduc- 
tors went into politics. He accepted these statements, 
and said that if these were the men who conducted the 
government of the United States, he wanted to look into 
it. 

"I want to find out if I am really too weak to hold 
my own in a rough and tumble," he said. The supreme 
ambition of his life was to be strong. 

The club quarters were over a saloon, and when he 
first appeared there, with his side whiskers and his air 
of wealth and class, the men were wary of him. The 
club boss was Jake Hess, who treated him amiably. 
He looked like a "dude," to the members of the club. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 217 

His first fight in the club, against "bossism," was over 
a non-partisan system of street-cleaning. They ap- 
plauded his speech, but voted as Jake Hess ordered, and 
Roosevelt was defeated 95 to 4. He grinned, and kept 
moving. The grin with which he took his punishment 
pleased the politicians, especially a red-headed, shrewd 
Irishman, Joe Murray. He was a leader of a gang, 
and finally got a job with Tammany Hall to bully Re- 
publican voters at election. The Tammany ''Boss" 
neglected to reward Murray one election, and the 
Republican leaders employed him. He liked young 
Roosevelt for his courage and his ideas, and the latter 
liked Murray for the fundamental character of courage 
and hard hitting that he displayed. He recognized the 
shrewdness which Murray had, in spite of his lack of 
education. On this account he felt that he could learn 
something from Murray. This man brought about the 
nomination of Theodore Roosevelt for the Assembly. 
It was a "silk stocking" campaign. Besides Roosevelt 
there was another "old New York" family name on 
the ballot — William Waldorf Astor. Roosevelt was 
elected, Astor was defeated. 

During his first political taste of Albany he bit hard 
into legislative corruptions, in spite of friendly advice 
to avoid friction. His jaw was stiff and square by 
this time. He was the youngest member of the Legis- 
lature and the most active. He led a resolution to 
impeach a Judge for using his ofiicial position to sup- 
port Jay Gould and his crowd. 

"We have a right to demand that our judiciary shall 
be kept beyond reproach," he said. 



218 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

This activity against the '^ring" won the confidence 
of the people of the State of ISTew York, and he was re- 
elected to the Assembly, in spite of the opposition of 
financiers and a Democratic landslide. He gained the 
distinction of being called the "cyclone member." 

The following summer, 1883, it became evident that 
he must do something to restore his health, so he ran 
away to ranch life in the West. His adventures in the 
"Bad Lands" vnth Bill Sewall included hunting, Indian 
raids, stampedes of cattle, bronco-busting hardships in 
the saddle, fights in border towns ; all the things of the 
"wild West" were his. Early in his training as a cow- 
boy he learned to meet his man with moral courage. 

"Put up or shut up!" he said, striding up to a man, 
gun in hand. "Eight now, or be friends." 

"Make it friends," said the cowboy, who had probably 
been testing the strength of the Easterner with glasses. 
In the West he grew strong, hardy; his body responded 
to the spirit of fearlessness that was born in him. 

In 1889, when he was thirty-one, he had written 
many books, but he didn't expect much revenue from 
them. He did not feel that he had found his career yet. 
He also felt the necessity of leaving a distinguished 
name for his children. He thought of going into busi- 
ness. President Harrison oifered him the position of 
Civil Service Commissioner. He was advised not to 
accept. It was thought he would be politically buried. 
However, civil service reform was interesting to him, 
and he accepted. Life in Washington was agreeable 
to him and his family. His closest friend was Senator 
Lodge, whom he had known at Harvard, although Lodge 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 219 

was nine years his senior. He was a close friend of 
John Hay. During the six years he occupied this posi- 
tion, every autumn he took a run out West, "for a hack 
at the bears in the Rockies." 

In 1895, he became Police Commissioner of ISTew 
York. His friends urged him to do this. The bril- 
liant, aggressive, manly direction of the police depart- 
ment gave him National fame. 

"He detested cowardice, and he always stood by the 
man who was doing or trying to do his job," said a 
police captain of him. He would spend long nights 
prowling about the city streets to see how the police 
were doing their work. The people gradually realized 
that the man himself was a moral force that would not 
yield. 

In 1897, President McKinley appointed Roosevelt 
Assistant Secretary of Navy, at his own request. A 
year later war was declared with Spain. When the 
President called for volunteers, Roosevelt resigned his 
job in Washington, and raised the famous "Rough 
Riders," made up of noted cowboys from the West. 
Every one, even Bill Sewall, advised him not to do 
this. In San Antonio he assembled his regiment with 
the help of his friend Leonard Wood, who became his 
Colonel. To his sister Roosevelt sent this note in ex- 
planation : 

"I couldn't stay. That was the sum and substance 
of it — although I realize well — what a change for the 
worse it means in my after life." 

Yet his gallantry and bravery in Cuba with the 
Rough Riders was probably the most vital event in his 



220 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

public life, for two weeks after the Rough Riders were 
disbanded he was nominated for Governor of New York. 
He took his war veterans with him on the stump. The 
election was close, and on election night he went to bed 
believing himself defeated. At 2 a. m., standing in a 
pair of scarlet pajamas, he received the news of his 
election. 

''Is it right ?" was Roosevelt's question on all issues 
of State, and if it wasn't, he vetoed or neglected the 
orders of the political boss in Albany. 

By this time his fame as a "progressive" had spread. 
He had achieved a ISTational reputation, that could lead 
only to the top. The Vice-Presidency was urged upon 
him by his party, but he repeatedly declined. He 
yielded only when he discovered that his name would 
give strength to McKinley's second term. 

Roosevelt has been aptly described as a man of des- 
tiny. The startling news of McKinley's assassination 
reached Roosevelt on an island in Lake Champlain. 
The final news of the President's death found him 
thirty-five miles away from the nearest clubhouse on 
the mountain. Runners, not knowing where to find 
him, went up through the mountain firing guns at 
regTilar intervals to attract attention. He heard them, 
responded with his own gun, and received the news. 

That perilous ride in a buck-board c«i a pitch-dark 
road, in the face of a driving rain, was the time when 
Roosevelt faced the possibility of being President with 
anxiety. He reached the railroad station at dawn, 
where a special train was waiting for him, which took 
him to Buffalo. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 221 

The emotion of the man, tense, struggling to face the 
responsibility put upon him suddenly, reached its break- 
ing point when the Secretary of War told him it was 
the wish of the Cabinet that he be sworn in at once. 
His eyes filled with tears. Judge Hazel administered 
the oath. 

"I do solemnly swear," said Roosevelt, one hand held 
high, "that I will faithfully execute the office of Presi- 
dent of the United States, and will, to the best of my 
ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution 
of the United States." Then he added, after a brief 
pause, "And thus I swear." 

Then began a new era. The supervision of cor- 
porations and the "square deal" for labor became the 
first duty of the new President. 

The supreme standards of his personal character in- 
fluenced the ISTational growth in the succeeding period 
of his term of office. To the end, Theodore Roosevelt 
was the strong man of America, because he had willed 
it in boyhood. 

His son's cable reply to his brother in Erance, an- 
nouncing his death, is the finest epic of the great man's 
active life. 

"The Lion is dead." 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

(1859-1915) 

THE EDUCATIONAL LEADER OF 
THE NEGRO RACE 




BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 



I 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

(1859-1915) 

THE EDUCATIONAL LEADER OF 
THE NEGRO RACE 

« Y WAS born a slave on a plantation in Franklin 
County, Virginia," wrote Booker T. Washing- 
ton, the founder of the famous college for the 
colored race, Tuskegee University, in Tuskegee, Ala- 
bama. It was a desolate, miserable, discouraging 
"home" in which he was born. His mother was the 
plantation cook; the food was cooked on skillets and 
in pots on a huge log fire. There were no windows 
in the cabin, no floor but the earth, and the cabin itself 
was loosely built so that the wind and rain, in stormy 
weather, swept into it in cold gusts. The door hung 
loosely on a piece of cord. Wretched was the beginning 
of this remarkable man, who by force of his own char- 
acter became a leader of his race. The only garment 
he wore as a child was a shirt made of flax, which was 
a torture to the flesh. He slept on a dirty rag pallet 
thrown in a corner of the cabin at night. From this 
state of human degradation he climbed to a position 
of honor and trust, a leader in the education of the 
Negro race. 

The ambition of his childhood was to learn to read. 
It was the hope deep-rooted in the colored race. None 

225 



226 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

of the slaves in slavery days could read or write. Oc- 
casionally a kindly v^hite woman would teach one of the 
black boys to read a spelling book, but these incidents 
were rare. The first gleam of hope came to the boy 
when the slaves of the plantation were summoned to the 
"big house" on the hill. On a beautiful morning they 
gathered on the lawn in front of their white masters. 
The entire family, men and women, was on the porch, 
face to face with these black slaves. There was a feel- 
ing, underneath the excitement of the occasion, of sym- 
pathy, of affection for the white masters from whom 
they knew they were about to be separated. On the 
porch was a strange man in uniform. He read aloud 
a long document he held in his hand. It was the Eman- 
cipation Act, giving freedom to the slaves. When he 
had finished, the white master announced that they were 
free, they could go when they liked. With mingled 
feelings of fear and joy the colored people went back 
to their wretched quarters, puzzled, frightened, wonder- 
ing what they would do out in the world in competition 
for a livelihood with their former masters. The first 
impulse of this new freedom was to make a holiday 
of it, to go away somewhere and think the whole situa- 
tion over. It was a great responsibility, being free. 
How could they be able to take charge of themselves, 
and their children ? The problems, which the white 
people had solved, confronted these people and became 
an oppressive burden. There were the great questions 
of a home, a living, education for the children, citizen- 
ship, and the support of themselves. 

The first great question was to find names for them- 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 227 

selves. In slavery they had been just "John" or 
"Susan" belonging to some one. Usually they were 
known by the name of their master, such as "Smith's 
John," or "Jones's Susan." The appalling ignorance 
of this vast horde of freed slaves at the time of their 
emancipation made them choose names indiscrimi- 
nately. Most of them preferred high-sounding names, 
usually throe of them. The middle name rarely went 
further than au initial, which they described as their 
"entitles." The way Booker T. "Washington christened 
himself is typical. 

At the roll-call of the children for the first school 
class, this colored boy fell into line. He heard those 
ahead of him giving themselves names. He himself 
hadn't thought of any. His mother, for some unknown 
reasons, had tried to attach the name of "Taliafero" to 
him, but without success. In the wretched log-cabin 
on the plantation he had been called "Booker." But 
this was not enough for the dignity of his new rights in 
freedom. The half-scared, totally ignorant little 
colored boy thought quickly. As his time came to an- 
swer the roll-call he told the teacher his name was 
Booker T. Washington, and so unconsciously he en- 
rolled himself among the famous. 

His home life had been totally without any compre 
hension of the word "home." He never knew who his 
father was, but stated his impression, in after years, that 
he was a white man. His mother, however, claimed a 
husband who had been a slave on some other plantation. 
He had run away and, doing odd chores for the Federal 
soldiers, managed to settle in West Virginia, the new 



228 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

State; so she joined him with her family, making the 
trip of five hundred miles pushing her belongings in a 
cart. Their parting with their former owners was a 
sad occasion. For years afterwards they kept up a 
correspondence with members of the family. The pro- 
vision which their step-father had made for them in 
West Virginia was worse than the cabin they had occu- 
pied on the plantation. He was employed in a salt- 
mine near Molden, West Virginia. The cabin they 
lived in was smaller, dirtier, a mere hutch in a cluster 
of similar cabins surrounded by filthy and unsanitary 
conditions. In this miserable degradation where the 
neighbors indulged in drinking, gambling, and quarrel- 
ing, the boyhood of Booker was passed. He was soon 
put to work in the salt-mines to earn money for this 
hideous "home." It was in the salt-mine that the boy 
learned to make his first mark. The barrels in which 
the salt was packed were numbered. The number 
allotted to his section was eighteen. Gradually he 
associated this sign with his work, and finally man- 
aged to write the number himself, not knowing what it 
meant. 

He had secretly vowed that if he did nothing else 
in his life, he would learn, somehow, how to read. 
This was his absorbing ambition. He kept begging his 
mother to get him a book with printed words in it. 
Finally she managed to get hold of a primer for him, an 
old copy of Webster's "blue-back" spelling book. This 
was the first book he ever had, and he devoured it, 
struggling to understand the letters. Some one told him 
that he must first learn the alphabet, a difficult thing to 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 229 

do without a teacher. It was in these dark hours of 
his ambition that he endured the tragic experiences of 
his race, that he discovered the horror of ignorance, 
from which sprang the whole course of his future life 
to educate them. There was no one in the neighbor- 
hood among the colored people who could read. In a 
few weeks, during which his mother helped him with 
her sympathy and what assistance she could give, he 
mastered the alphabet. In her was an ambition to 
educate her children, that encouraged him, also. One 
day a colored boy who had been taught to read in 
slavery came to Molden, and at the close of his day's 
work he would read the newspaper aloud to groups of 
colored people. This was an additional spur to the 
boy's ambition, arousing envy and admiration for this 
young man of his own race, who could accomplish this 
wonderful art of reading. The inlluence of this young 
man's "education" upon the rest bore fruit. The first 
school for Negro children was acquired, the first at 
least in that part of Virginia. To find a teacher was 
the problem. The young man who could read aloud was 
considered, but he was too young. No free schools for 
colored children had been started in Virginia up to that 
time, so the older people agreed to contribute enough 
money to engage a colored teacher with the understand- 
ing that the teacher was to "board aroun'." The whole 
race was compelled to go to school, few were too young 
or too old. But during his boyhood he often found that 
the colored teacher knew little more than he did him- 
self. 

The ambition of the older colored people was to learn 



230 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAEACTER 

to read the Bible. Night schools for the gray-headed 
men started for this purpose. The mania for "going to 
school" spread, till there were day schools, night schools, 
Sunday schools of all sorts. Young Booker Washing- 
ton was compelled to attend the night school because 
his step-father insisted that he keep at work in the salt- 
factory. Out of this experience came his realization 
in later years that night schools were necessary at the 
Hampton Institute and at Tuskegee. 

When, after much wrangling and waiting, Booker 
was permitted to attend the day school, he was con- 
fronted with a problem that was hard to overcome. He 
saw that the other boys all wore hats. He had never 
owned one in his life. He complained to his mother. 
She told him that she couldn't afford to buy him a 
"store hat," but she made one by cutting two pieces of 
homespun cloth and sewing them together. This was 
his first cap. 

Most of his boyhood was spent in hard labor, partly 
in a coal mine, and he admitted in later years that he 
envied the white boys who had no obstacles to their 
chances of going to Congress, of becoming bishops or 
professors. The impulse of his wliole life was an in- 
ordinate ambition for equal opportunity for the race. 

It was by accident that he heard of the Hampton 
Institute, the famous colored university of Virginia. 
This fired his imagination, and seeing no future in the 
coal mine, he secured a position as a servant in the 
home of a Mrs. Ruffur. From there he set out for the 
Hampton Institute, knowing scarcely in what direction 
he should travel, and with no idea of what it would 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 231 

cost him. Except for the overwhelming ambition for 
education, he could never have overcome the obstacles 
that confronted him. No one encouraged him in his 
plans. Even his mother, his only friend, insisted that 
his ambition was "a wild-goose chase." The older 
Negroes saw something of the spirit of the boy, how- 
ever, for they took up a collection in dimes and nickels 
to help him take the first step in his trip to the 
university. The distance was many hundreds of miles. 
He was refused shelter at all hotels, spent many nights 
in the open, and finally reached Eichmond, Va., penni- 
less, weary, and starved. This was eighty-two miles 
from Hampton. In Richmond, where years afterwards 
he was the guest of a complimentary mass meeting of 
over two thousand people, he slept under a board walk. 
The next morning he got employment unloading a ship, 
and so secured a few dollars with which to continue his 
trip to Hampton, undaunted. 

When he presented himself at Hampton Institute, 
ragged, dirty, and hungry, he made a very poor impres- 
sion on Miss Mary E. MacKie, the head teacher. She 
kept him in suspense for some time, and finally told 
him to sweep and dust the recitation room. He was 
so anxious to be enrolled that he swept the big room 
twice, dusted it four times, and waited anxiously for the 
verdict of this test of thoroughness in character to 
which he had been put. Her decision was in his favor. 
"I guess you will do to enter the Institution," she said. 
Hundreds of other colored youths went through the 
same terrible experience in their eagerness to secure 
an education. Booker was offered the position of jan- 



232 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

itor in return for his schooling, which enabled him to 
work out his board. 

He was the youngest student at Hampton at the 
time ; most of them were grown men and women, some 
over forty years of age. They were tremendously in 
earnest, but many of them were too old to master the 
textbooks. It was a struggle not only against intel- 
lectual deficiencies but against intense poverty. 

In all these years of difficulty and trouble Booker 
T. Washington sensed the need of education for the 
Negro, saw the hopelessness of his chances in the world 
without it. 'No discouragement stopped him, no work 
was too arduous to accomplish the ideal of his character. 
The education which he received from the textbooks 
was a small part of the experience. He acknowledged, 
years afterwards, that it was the patience, sympathy, 
and example shown him by the unselfish white teachers 
who devoted their lives to the spiritual improvement of 
the Negro that inspired him to fight on. At heart 
an idealist, his one aim was to do something to make 
the world better, and to interpret the Negro character 
in telling about the handicaps of his race. 

During the reconstruction period he saw what he 
considered the unjust exploitation of the Negro in po- 
litical life. He saw colored men in the Legislature and 
in county offices who couldn't read or write. A few of 
them were worthy, but many were not. From Hamp- 
ton Institute he returned to Molden where he conducted 
a colored school for ten years, then he went to Wash- 
ington, D. C, to investigate the educational system of 
the Negroes there. He found a false standard of ideas. 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 233 

At Hampton the student was taught to be self support- 
ing, not above any sort of work. In Washington he 
found many Negroes who were above work, whose tui- 
tion and board were paid by some philanthropic person. 
The effect of this was to place the Negro in a false re- 
lation to education, to make him lazy, extravagant, 
irresponsible. Book education alone, he found, only 
weaned them away from the economic necessities of life. 

He had made so good an impression at Hampton that 
he was engaged as a teacher, and was put in charge of 
a new department, the education of the Indian. He 
expected to find the Indian rebellious, because Indians 
had owned slaves before the Emancipation Act. He 
found, however, that consideration on both sides led 
to harmony, and he conducted classes for over a hun- 
dred Indians at Hampton. 

In May, 1881, a letter was received at Hampton In- 
stitute from some gentleman in Alabama, asking them 
to recommend some one to take charge of a normal 
school for colored people at Tuskegee. The letter re- 
quested a white man for the job. Booker Washington 
was recommended, and engaged. Tuskegee was in the 
"Black Belt," and when the founder of the Tuskegee 
Institute arrived there, he found only a lot of Negroes, 
eager to go to school. There was no building, no organ- 
ization to take care of them. Two thousand dollars had 
been appropriated by the Legislature to pay teachers' 
salaries, and that was all. He began the great work of 
his life in a tumble-down shanty adjoining the colored 
Methodist Church. Whenever it rained, one of the 
older students had to hold an umbrella over the teacher's 



234 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

head during class. More than once his landlady held 
an umbrella over him while he was eating his break- 
fast. He went at the organization of his institution 
thoroughly, as he had done everything else. He made 
a trip through the State to examine the character of 
the Negroes in their cabins. He found the same ig- 
norance, dirt, degradation of cabin life that he himself 
was bom in. The mental attitude of his race was still 
under the shadow of slavery. He asked an old Negro 
of sixty to tell him something of his history. He was 
born in Virginia but had been sold into Alabama. 

"There were five of us sold," he told the teacher, 
"myself and brother and three mules." 

One of his difficulties was to overcome the white 
man's fear of an educated Negro, the expectation that 
the result would be a Negro in a high hat, imitation 
gold eye-glasses, a walking stick, kid gloves, and fancy 
boots. His first class was made up of thirty Negroes 
over forty years of age, and most of them wanted edu- 
cation because they hoped it would enable them to get 
work as teachers. They had a longing to read big 
books with big words. 

"While they could locate the Desert of Sahara or 
the capital of China on an artificial globe, I found that 
the girls could not locate the proper places for the knives 
and forks on an actual dinner table — or the plates on 
which the bread and meat should be placed," writes 
Booker Washington, showing that his purpose in edu- 
cation was not merely book-learning, but manners and 
deportment. 

During the nineteen years that he spent in the 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 235 

foundation of the famous Tuskegee College he worked 
for an awakening of the moral forces in the Negro, and 
accomplished for them the respect of the South and the 
North. By constant public speaking and personal ap- 
peal he secured contributions for the buildings, land, 
and farms that the institution now owns. His first 
application to Collis P. Huntington, the railroad mag- 
nate, netted two dollars. Later Mr. Huntington con- 
tributed $50,000 to the cause. Andrew Carnegie do- 
nated $20,000 for the college library. The Alabama 
Legislature increased its appropriation to six thou- 
sand dollars. Persisting, he raised a huge total for this 
now famous Institute. 

Booker Taliafero Washington, born a slave, in total 
ignorance, brought up in filth and misery indescribably 
shameful, became a world-wide figure of supreme im- 
portance and dignity, because he was a humanitarian, 
a man who knew education was not only in books, but 
in moral cleanliness, honesty, and sincerity of character. 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 

(I860 ) 

A CRUSADER OF ADVANCED IDEALS 




From Portrait by Irving R. Wiles 

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 



.WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

(I860 ) 

A CRUSADER OF ADVANCED IDEALS 

JUDGE BRYAN'S farm, about a mile outside of 
Salem, Illinois, was the show-farm of that section 
in 1866. It entended fopfive hundred acres, and 
included a garden and a private park where fine deer 
were kept. In this spacious environment William 
Jennings Bryan, born in Salem, started his career at 
the age of six. This disposes of some fiction about 
his being the son of a poor farmer. His father was, 
on the contrary, a cultivated man of local importance 
in Illinois. He was a Circuit Judge, had served in the 
State Senate, was a man above the average in his com- 
munity. He wanted his son to have a classical edu- 
cation; his wife favored the career of a lawyer, for 
him; young Bryan himself, at this time, wanted to be 
a minister. This selection was chiefly because of the 
religious influence his father exerted over the house- 
hold. Judge Bryan was a very religious man. He 
made religious devotion a strict part of his daily life. 
He prayed three times a day, morning, noon, and night. 
Often when holding court, he would look at his watch, 

and at noon he would suspend proceedings and kneel 

239 



240 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

for a few minutes in silent prayer in the courtroom. 
No matter where he was when noontime came, he 
stopped whatever he was doing for the mid-day prayer. 
Once he was about to mount his horse when, looking 
at his watch, he saw it was twelve o'clock, and he knelt 
beside the horse, said his silent prayer, mounted, and 
went on. This impressive habit influenced his son, and 
made him study his Bible, so that it was the model 
of his thoughts, his language, his reasoning. From 
this source can be traced that distinctive fashion of all 
his speeches, the form and fire of his oratory that has 
moved the Nation more than once. It is the form and 
style of Biblical literature. All his life he has been a 
leader — in religious movements, conducting a Sunday 
School, advocating prohibition, urging a cessation of 
war, opposing private capital in favor of Government 
ownership whenever expedient, pressing for direct pri- 
maries in Senatorial elections. His purpose has been 
that of a reformer, and most of his reforms, though 
scoffed at when first proposed, have become statutory 
laws or National policies since. 

The Middle West, when Bryan grew up in it, was a 
section where people lived plainly, talked frankly, and 
hated class distinctions. All the influences of his first 
years of life were democratic. He didn't go to school 
till he was ten years old, but learned all that he knew 
up to that time from his father and mother. His sur- 
roundings were the quiet farmhouse, his hours were 
the sunrise and sunset hours of the farm, and nis daily 
jobs were those of a boy on a farm, who attends to 
the chores. He could take care of the animals 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 241 

in the bam, plow, mow grass, pitch hay, hoe potatoes, 
plant a garden, or scrub the floors with the skill of many 
other boys of his age. After five years of the village 
school, he went to a preparatory school for the Illinois 
College, from which he was graduated when he was 
twenty-one. Then he went through the Union Law 
School in Chicago, and got his first job in a lawyer's 
office in that city. 

During those eight years he developed normally, si- 
lently, without any outward indication of special tal- 
ents for the law. But he had shown marked ability as 
a public speaker. He demonstrated this when he de- 
livered the valedictory address at his graduation from 
the college, where he took the second prize for oratory 
in the intercollegiate contest, with a declamation of an 
original oration called "Justice." 

The real start of his career occurred when he went to 
work in the law ofiiee of ex-Senator Lyman Trumbull, 
whose influence and guidance developed the latent 
talents that were in him. This fortunate opportunity 
he has always regarded as the explanation of his suc- 
cess as an orator. He always acknowledged his grati- 
tude to the valuable influence of his first employer. 
Long years afterwards, immediately after his nomi- 
nation by the Democratic Convention for President in 
1896, he went from the convention hall to the grave of 
Senator Trumbull in Oakland Cemetery, and stood 
bare-headed in grateful memory of his teachings. 

His first platform, however, was the kitchen table 
at home on which he would stand and repeat his lessons 
to his mother, and this habit of declamation, of "speak- 



242 FAMOUS LEADERS- OF CHARACTER 

ing a piece/" was his own idea. He always felt that he 
could answer questions much better if he stood on the 
table than if he stood on the floor. 

His ambition for public life started when he was 
twelve years old, in 1872, when his father was go- 
ing through a political campaign for Congress. He 
watched, and listened, and saw the methods that were 
employed in his father's campaign, and arrived at 
certain fixed ideas as to how one could reach a place 
in public life. He planned first, when he grew up, 
to win a reputation and a moderate fortune in some 
profession, preferably the law. Then he could think 
of public life. But he actually reached his ambition, 
in later years, by seizing an imexpected opportunity. 

The religious side of his life took positive form when 
he was only fourteen. Instead of joining the Baptist 
Church to which his parents belonged, he entered the 
First Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville, 111., and has 
been a member of that church ever since. 

The strict temperance in all things, which has con- 
sistently controlled the personal views of William Jen- 
nings Bryan, was based on a deeply religious sense 
of duty to the laws of the Church. In addition to this, 
during the years he spent at the preparatory school for 
college, from the age of fifteen to seventeen, he lived 
with a distant relative, Dr. Hiram K. Jones. The 
doctor was a scholarly sort of man with strict views 
of a temperate life, which he had taught at the Con- 
cord school, where he was a lecturer on Platonic Phi- 
losophy. In his home, Dr. Jones and his wife, who had 
no children themselves, gave young Bryan the care as 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 243 

of a son. He grew np in an atmosphere of intense and 
rigid self-discipline. 

In tracing the early influences of his life, besides the 
religious temperament of his father, the healthy and 
scholarly guidance of his two mentors in Chicago, 
Dr. Jones and Senator Trumbull, must be added 
the inspiration and devotion of the girl he met at 
the Illinois College, and whom he subsequently mar- 
ried. 

She was Miss Mary E. Baird of Perry, Illinois, who 
was also a student in the Annex, the department for 
girls. She, too, had earned distinction for her oratory 
in the college, and delivered the valedictory address at 
her graduation. 

As a young man, William Jennings Bryan was con- 
sidered one of the handsomest students in the college: 
tall, with black hair, a white skin, expressive eyes, and 
a smile that was winning, radiant, an embodiment of 
the equable, amiable, kindly temperament he has al- 
ways had. Their romance, which began on the college 
campus, was founded on mutual intellectual interests, 
an ideal approach to a permanent happiness. They 
were engaged at the end of their college life, which 
they had shared in study. He decided to be a lawyer. 
They viewed their romance with practical vision, for 
his fiancee decided that she too would study law, so 
as to be able to help him when they were married. She 
studied law, but never practiced. 

Mrs. Bryan has described vividly her first meeting 
with the orator: 

"My personal knowledge of Mr. Bryan dates from 



244 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

September, 1879," she writes. "He was then entering 
his Junior year. I saw him first in the parlors of the 
young ladies' school which T attended in Jacksonville, 
111. He entered the room with several other students, 
was taller than the rest, and attracted my attention at 
once. His face was pale and thin ; a pair of keen, dark 
eyes looked out from beneath heavy eyebrows ; his nose 
was prominent — too large to look well, I thought ; a 
broad, thin-lipped mouth and a square chin completed 
the contour of his face. He was neat though not fas- 
tidious in dress, and stood firmly with dignity. I noted 
particularly his hair and smile — the former, black in 
color, fine in quality, and parted distressingly straight; 
the latter, expansive, expressive." 

Mr. Bryan's smile, when he was a young man, 
was in fact so wide that an onlooker seeing him for 
the first time at a public meeting said, "That man can 
whisper in his own ear." 

The trend of Mr. Bryan's thought in any crisis usu- 
ally led to a refuge of some sort in the Scriptures. 
This was because he had been influenced as a boy to seek 
consolation and advice in the Bible, or in prayer. His 
religious instincts have always prevailed, they have col- 
ored all his famous speeches and lectures. He always 
quotes the Scriptures in them. Mrs. Bryan empha- 
sizes this tendency in an anecdote she recounts of her 
husband's interview with her father on the subject of 
their marriage : 

"The time came when it seemed proper to have a little 
conversation with my father," she writes, "and this 
was something of an ordeal, as father is a reserved 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 245 

man. In his dilemma, William sought refuge in the 
Scriptures and began : 

" 'Mr. Baird, I have been reading Proverbs a good 
deal lately, and find that Solomon says : "Whoso findeth 
a wife findeth a good thing, and obtainetli favor of tiie 
Lord." Tather, being something of a Bible scholar 
himself, replied : 'Yes, Solomon did say that ; but 
Paul suggests that, vehilc he that marrieth doth well, 
he that marrieth not, doth better.' 

"This was distressing, but William saw his way 
through, for he said, 'Solomon would be the best au- 
thority on this point, because Paul never married, while 
Solomon had many wives.' " 

The matter was then satisfactorily arranged, and they 
were married in October of 1884, when Mr. Bryan was 
twenty-four. During the summer of that year a small 
home was built, into which they moved as soon as they 
were married. This incident like many others in Mr. 
Bryan's life demonstrates the practical side of his 
character, which has been no small part of his success. 

"During the next three years," writes Mrs. Bryan, 
"we lived comfortably, though economically, and laid 
by a small amount." 

During this time the young "Emancipator of the 
West," as he was called later, was the collection clerk 
for Brown and Korby, a small firm of country law- 
yers in Jacksonville. Occasionally he delivered polit- 
ical speeches in the local county elections. 

Mr. Bryan's choice of Lincoln, Nebraska, for a per- 
manent home came three years after he was married. 
There were no political reasons for the change, for the 



246 FAMOUS LEADERS OP CHARACTER 

city, county, and State were almost solidly Republican, 
whereas Mr. Bryan is a Democrat. He returned home, 
from a business trip to Lincoln, ISTebraska, full of en- 
thusiasm for the West. He had met an old school- 
mate, A. R. Talbot, who had a law office of his own in 
Lincoln, and Mr. Bryan, being offered a partnership 
with him, accepted. This was not an improvement in 
a business way, because the new partner was still a 
young man of stiff ideals. Mr. Talbot's business as a 
lawyer was largely with the railroads. Mr. Bryan, 
on principle as a disciple of anti-trust legislation, de- 
clined to do anything for any railroad, so he did not 
share in the profits of Talbot's business, and practically 
had to begin at the bottom of the ladder again. This 
was never any problem to Mr. Bryan. He has begun 
over and over again in so many vital ^National issues 
in which he has been opposed, that it is one of his chief 
characteristics to pursue his ideal at whatever per- 
sonal cost it involves. His is the temperament of true 
reform. 

Mr. Bryan's refusal as a lawyer to accept a fee of 
$10,000 to defend a railroad, because he could not sur- 
render his anti-trust views, indicates that he was not 
destined to become a successful lawyer. His opponents 
have claimed that he was not, but Mrs. Bryan writes, 
in his defense, "Consider that he entered the law 
at twenty-three and left it at thirty, and during that 
period began twice, and twice became more than self- 
supporting." 

His practice in Lincoln, l^ebraska, was small, but he 
was immediately recognized by the Democrats, who 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 247 

were the minority party. His talents as a public 
speaker found ample scope at banquets, meetings, and 
clubs. He was soon chosen as delegate to the State 
Democratic Convention and there met all the leading 
Democrats of Nebraska, which led to a series of speeches 
on political interests. 

In 1890, when he was just thirty, he was nominated 
for Congress from his district on the Democratic ticket. 
Mr. Bryan's great gifts as an orator elected him in this 
campaign with a majority unheard of for Democrats 
in Nebraska. He had achieved the recognition, that 
has been widely acknowledged since, of his intense sin- 
cerity of character and his simplicity of manner and 
feeling towards all people. His voice was soothing to 
hear, his presence was dignified without coldness ; his 
power of launching a picturesque phrase, of shy humor 
and terrific earnestness, was admitted after the chief 
address of his campaig-n. 

In Congress, he was favored by an appointment on 
the Committee of Ways and Means, an honor rarely 
conferred on a young member. During the next three 
years he studied the National issues of his time deeply. 
Anxious to justify his selection on an important Com- 
mittee, he prepared himself for the address on the tariff 
in 1893, which launched him into National prominence. 
He has always had a large following ever since he 
sprang into the limelight twenty-eight years ago. 

In a brief analysis of Mr. Bryan's phenomenal ac- 
tivity in politics, in religion, in the social and diplomatic 
affairs of the Nation, the inevitable conclusion that he 
is a constructive thinker of tireless energy is brought 



248 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

home to us. His intellectual grasp of big issues and his 
fertility of expression have swung many National re- 
forms. Nor has he ever retreated from his ideals in 
the face of bitter opposition, though it has brought the 
ridicule of cartoons and press upon him. 

His defeat in his next campaign for Congress, how- 
ever, left him secretly shorn of ambition. He was a 
poor man, he had a family to support, and at this 
crisis he thought seriously of taking up the practice 
of law again. The sudden activity of the Demo- 
cratic Party in a great drive for National power 
diverted him from this course. He had shown 
himself to be a student and an original force 
in democratic gospel, and more than this, in popu- 
lar interpretation of issues for the people. An offer 
was made him on the staff of the Omaha World- 
Herald, which he accepted, at a salary of $1800. In 
addition to this he was in demand as a lecturer. His 
place in the political fortunes of the Democratic Party 
became unassailable and his speeches, made all over the 
country, were ammunition that scattered his opponents. 
Finally, at the Democratic Convention, he rose to the 
great opportunity of his career and captured the nomi- 
nation with the famous "cross of gold" speech, which 
urged the increased coinage of silver on a basis of 16-1 
with gold. 

He received an ovation, the delegates carrying him on 
their shoulders round the Convention Hall, and he was 
ever after a force in National life. Because of his re- 
former's temperament he has been opposed ; and yet, be- 
cause of his temperament also, he has made a perma- 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 2-t9 

nent, deep mark upon the history of the Nation. Many 
of the policies he had advocated have been adopted by 
other political parties, who have found them expedient. 

He advocated Government ownership of railroads, 
municipal ownership of utilties, regulation of corpora- 
tions, tariff reforms, the Federal income tax. State 
Eights, publicity of campaign contributions, opposi- 
tion to imperialism, restriction of immigration, Federal 
guarantee of deposits in National banks, self-govern- 
ment for the Philippines, free Cuba, pure food laws, 
employers' liability act, one term only for President, 
irrigation, election of United States Senators by direct 
vote, opposition to militarism, opposition to child labor, 
Christian missions in foreign lands, semi-socialism. 
Prohibition has been his life's work, and at the age of 
sixty-one he conducts vast Sunday School meetings. 

He was the first American to do something for the 
abolition of war. As far back as 1905 he made a public 
declaration against war that attracted wide-spread at- 
tention. It was received with sneers and scoffing. At 
that time war was a dead issue for America. In that 
year the Congress of the Interparliamentary Union for 
the Promotion of International Arbitration, adopted 
an amendment written by ISlr. Bryan, favoring recourse 
to an International Arbitration Committee, This was 
the fundamental treaty idea. With the fire of his 
oratory, he attracted the attention of cynical diplomats. 
Pointing at the picture of Admiral Nelson's death he 
declared : 

"There is as much inspiration in a noble life as in 
a heroic death." 



250 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

The keynote of this statement was what has now been 
accepted, a realization that permanent peace depends 
upon arbitration. From that time, Mr. Bryan fought 
continuously to annihilate war. This became para- 
mount in his service to the country as Secretary of 
State. Whenever he could, he removed international 
complications that might lead to war. His innumer- 
able peace treaties have become prophetic instances of 
his foresight in international affairs. His purpose was, 
he said, "to provide a time for passion to subside." 
Between 1913 and 1914 he signed twenty-six treaties of 
peace with foreign nations. 

Mr. Bryan has shown himself in many instances to 
be a man in advance of his time. 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD 
WOOD 

(I860 ) 

APOSTLE OF PEACE AND 
PREPAREDNESS 




Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. V. 

MAJOR GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 



MAJOE-GENERAL LEONARD 
WOOD 

(I860 ) 

APOSTLE OF PEACE AND 
PREPAREDNESS 

THE lives of Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard 
Wood are intertwined. In the days of our war 
with Spain and afterwards, when Theodore 
Roosevelt was in the White House and Leonard Wood 
in the saddle, it was always "T. R." and "L. W." in 
their close friendship, — a friendship based upon mu- 
tual admiration and personal congeniality. 

It was a comradeship that was mutually stimulating, 
a comradeship that helped them both to success and 
honor. 

They met when William McKinley was President 
of the United States and Leonard Wood was physician 
to the President. Theodore Eoosevelt was the Assist- 
ant Secretary of the Navy. Their meeting at a White 
House reception was the beginning of a friendship that 
remained uninterrupted during Roosevelt's life. 

But long before Leonard Wood was assigned to take 
care of the health of Presidents, he had won his spurs 
in war. 

Born in New Hampshire October 9th, 1860, Leonard 

253 



254 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Wood was the son of a physician. He inherited from 
his Mayflower Pilgrim forefathers the sturdy character 
and sound principles that have been his guiding beacons 
through life. From his great-grandfather, who led a 
regiment in the Revolutionary Army at Bunker Hill, 
and his father, who served as a doctor in the Civil War, 
Leonard Wood came naturally by his military instincts. 

As a boy, the spirit of adventure early possessed him. 
He announced to his father that he intended to go to 
sea — lured perhaps by the breaking waves of the ocean 
on the shore of Cape Cod, where his parents then lived. 
Receiving, however, no encouragement in that desire, he 
decided to join an Arctic Expedition. Parental ad- 
vice prevailed, for early in life Leonard Wood learned 
to obey orders, a characteristic that has made him a 
great soldier. 

He went to Harvard Medical School and was gradu- 
ated in 1884. The life of a physician in a small orbit 
did not satisfy his restless mind, and he applied to the 
army as a surgeon. 

The army in the '80s was a quiet berth for an adven- 
turesome spirit, and Leonard Wood wanted action. 
!Not every young doctor was ambitious to go to the 
"front," so Surgeon Wood's application for action re- 
ceived prompt response, and he was forthwith dis- 
patched to Arizona to join General Crook, in his cam- 
paign against the Apaches along the Mexican border. 

There he found what he dreamed of and aspired to. 
With that intrepid and gallant soldier, Lawton, he took 
to the saddle, and revealed qualities that through his 
career of remarkable events began to inspire recogni- 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 255 

tion. Captain Lawton in reporting to the great Indian 
fighter, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, in command of our troops 
along the Mexican border, said, "I can only repeat what 
I have reported officially, and what I have said to you, 
that his (Wood's) services during this trying (Ger- 
onimo) campaign were of the highest order. I speak 
particularly of services other than those devolving upon 
him as a medical officer; services as a combatant or 
line officer voluntarily performed. He sought the most 
difficult work, and by his determination and courage 
rendered a successful issue of the campaign possible." 

Wood's character was beginning to tell. The fierce 
Apaches, ''tigers of the human race," were quelled and 
Geronimo, their leader, captured. For months, with 
his little command, he had followed them over the great 
ranges, through deep ravines, and across cactus-covered 
deserts. 

From the quiet pursuit of the medical profession 
Leonard Wood had emerged a leader of men and a 
soldier, whose Indian campaigns won him the Congres- 
sional Medal of Honor, the prize for personal bravery, 
and the Nation's gratitude. 

More Indian fighting followed, service at Western 
forts as staff surgeon — and then to Washington as 
President McKinley's doctor. Leonard Wood wanted 
action, but for a time fate and his exceptional ability as 
a medical man intervened. It was his friend Theodore 
Roosevelt who opened the door again to action. 

The Spanish-American War was in its earliest stages. 
Secretary of War Alger offered Roosevelt a Colonelcy. 
Mr. Roosevelt has sometimes been called an egotist. 



256 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Certainly his reply to the War Secretary exhibited no 
vanity. 

''I will accept a position of Lieutenant-Colonel of a 
regiment, if my friend Leonard Wood will accept the 
Colonelcy," said Roosevelt. 

Thus the "Rough Riders" were born — the 1st 
Volunteer Cavalry, which won its reputation at Las 
Guasimas, Cuba, just about one month after its forma- 
tion. 

In the Cuban campaign. Colonel Wood displayed his 
marked ability for organization and as an executive — 
a genius that was recognized at Washington. His 
soldierly qualities in the Cuban campaign won him a 
Brigadier-Generalship, and his ability as an organizer 
and an executive made him a logical selection as Gover- 
nor-General of Cuba during the reconstruction days. 
He found an island impoverished, crushed, and sick 
with war and yellow-fever. He reorganized its admin- 
istration, put it on a basis of self-government, and 
blasted out the curse of centuries, its fever-laden breed- 
ing places, conquering the dread peril of the tropics 
themselves. Arising above the qualities of a surgeon, 
he developed the ability of an administrator — a states- 
man. 

It was President McKinley who made Leonard Wood 
the Governor-General of Cuba. Here he revealed his 
surprising versatility. Cuba had knowTQ Wood as the 
Colonel of the Rough Riders and "Teddy" Roosevelt 
as the Lieutenant-Colonel. Fate yanked Roosevelt into 
the President's chair a year later; and he did not for- 
get Wood. The man who at Las Guasimas had deliber- 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 257 

ately exposed himself to a withering fire from the 
Spaniards so that his men would be steeled to battle 
pitch, turned to the pursuits of peace. Wood gave 
Cuba laws. His railroad law has been pronounced a 
model of legislation. He gave the island good roads, 
the citj of Santiago paved streets, and he extirpated 
yellow-fever. Under Wood, Americans and Europeans 
could visit Cuba without fearing the plague. He gave 
the Cubans a sense of law and order and civic pride. 
He was a master builder and a diplomat. 

In Cuba the Church was bitter at the Americans for 
having parted Church and State and divested the arch- 
bishop of his accustomed revenues. Leonard Wood be- 
gan to make friends among the priests. A man de- 
scended from New England Puritans hobnobbed with 
the dignitaries of a church to which all his early re- 
ligious teachings were opposed. Once more he effaced 
self for the good of America. He steered his course so 
diplomatically that when the new archbishop of San- 
tiago was appointed Leonard Wood was invited to take 
a prominent place in the triumphal procession and found 
that the place of honor at the side of the archbishop, 
under the canopy, was his. And while the shades of 
his Puritan ancestors must have squirmed. Wood 
marched in the church procession and laid at rest all 
feeling of hostility for America. 

After his success in Cuba, Leonard Wood was sent to 
the Philippines to handle a far more difficult task — 
the pacification of Mindanao. His was the job to wipe 
out the lawlessness of twenty Moro tribes, to earn 
their good will, and to transform a place of head-hunt- 



258 FAMOUS LEADERS OP CHARACTER 

ing and polygamy into a clean American colony with 
public schools. He did it. Had he been merely a 
warrior he would have succeeded. He would have 
stamped out lawlessness, but it would have remained 
stamped out only as long as the natives saw sentries 
with fixed bayonets. But Wood pacified a province, 
transforming bitter enemies into loyal friends. 

On his journey to savage Mindanao, Wood did not 
mull over military things. He stopped off in India, 
Ceylon, Java, and the Straits Settlements and other col- 
onies. He was studying colonial administration, 
obtaining the best ideas of British and Dutch officials, 
inspecting their work, checking up their methods by 
visiting and talking with the natives. One day in Ma- 
nila a friend from America called on Wood. He saw 
bookshelves that filled three walls of Wood's office, 
shelves filled with statistics and reports on colonial 
government. 

"That's a fine collection," said his friend, "but when 
do you expect to get time to read through all that 
stuff?" 

"Read them !" replied Wood, "I've already read 
every line of them ; they have helped me." 

He made himself ready for the job, just as in recent 
years he has studied deeply American national life, all 
the forces which will make or unmake us as a nation. 

Leonard Wood has the gift of making men love him. 
When he went to the Philippines he had to pacify not 
only the Moros, but American officers and soldiers 
blindly prejudiced because of his rapid promotion. 
Jealous rivals had whispered that he was a White 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 259 

House pet; a doctor, not a soldier. Here is what an 
officer, who was with him in the island, said : 

"Pretty soon that part of the army began to realize 
that he was a hustler; that he knew a good deal about 
the soldier's game; that he did things and did them 
right; that when he sent troops into the field, he went 
along with them, and when they had to eat hardtack 
and bacon, he did it, too ; that when there were swamps 
to plod through, he was right along with them; that 
when reveille sounded before daybreak, he was usually 
up and dressed before us ; that when a man was down 
and out, and he happened to be near, he'd get off his 
horse and see what the matter was and fix the fellow 
up if he could ; that he had a pleasant word for all 
hands, from the Colonel down to the teamster or packer : 
that when he gave an order it was a sensible one, and 
that he didn't change it after it went out, and that he 
remembered a man who did a good piece of work, and 
showed his appreciation at every chance." 

It would seem as if there was something almost 
fatalistic in the merging of the careers of Theodore 
Roosevelt and Leonard Wood. Both Roosevelt and 
Wood were deep thinkers upon the subject of American- 
ism; but Roosevelt was a vociferous spokesman, while 
Wood, with that self-effacement which characterized 
the man in the affairs of his country and of Roosevelt, 
kept somewhat in the background. Eloquent he is, 
tremendously so. He has a way of saying things in a 
few words which hit hard with unpleasant truth. When 
we were in that aloof state of mind with "business just 
as usual" in the spring of 1917, he said, "We have got 



260 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

to bring live men to France and bring back dead men." 
His words stunned the Nation, drove home to people 
how serious the war was. Wood feared fatuous con- 
fidence. 

Leonard Wood knew the power of the German war- 
machine. Like Roosevelt, he had sat on a horse be- 
side the Kaiser in peace time and watched the mighty 
legions of the Hun go through the mimic attacks, which 
a few years later they launched at an unready world. 
He realized when war came to us that we were to be 
engaged in no child's play. He had a clear compre- 
hension of the task confronting us months before the 
Italian debacle of 1917. And of these thinos he 
deemed it his duty to speak. Before he took charge of 
Camp Funston, appalled at the way our preparations 
for war were hesitating, disturbed at the outlook in 
ordnance and the quartermaster's department, realiz- 
ing that ours was a race against time, that we must put 
a powerful anny on the battle line before the Allies 
were worn do\vn, he roused the country with a speech 
which graphically depicted "the blonde beast trampling 
over Europe." He feared the spirit taking root, that 
"America can lick the earth." He saw his soldiers 
of Camp Funston drilling in civilian clothes and with 
baseball bats. He dreaded the red tape in the machin- 
ery of our war preparations which was holding back uni- 
forms and rifles. He knew that debates were being- 
held on the kind of machine guns to be made instead of 
placing the orders for the guns. Time and again, see- 
ing only the future of the Nation, he caused a message 
of "speed" to be flashed throughout the country. This 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 261 

was like Wood. He detested red tape and armchair- 
warriors. He remembered the Spanish-American war 
and the remark a General made to him at that time : 
'^Here I had a magnificent system, my office and de- 
partment were in good working order, and this con- 
founded war comes along and breaks it all np." 

Wood knew that similar-thinking men were in power 
in Washington, and he feared their inefficieucj^ when 
he thought of the German war-machine. The men 
ultimately walked the plank. It was Wood who in- 
curred their wrath by appearing in the Senate and tell- 
ing the truth about our preparations, mincing no words, 
and causing the American people to demand action. 
He knew that this would get him into trouble with tlie 
armchair-generals of our army, whose political power 
was strong. But he deemed it his duty to tell the 
American people the truth about tlie situation. He 
has always decided what was the right thing to do, and 
then had the courage to do it. 

Thirty-five years ago, when he v;as not in the army, 
when he had just received his diploma from the Har- 
vard Medical School, he revealed this trait in his char- 
acter. As an interne in a Boston hospital he was re- 
quired to send for the visiting surgeon in all cases re- 
quiring immediate operation, and was himself for- 
bidden to do the work. One day an infant was brought 
in in such a perilous condition that death might result 
from any delay. Leonard Wood decided that the right 
thing to do was to operate at once. He knew he would 
get into trouble if he did not wait for the visiting sur- 
geon. He operated — carefully, fearlessly, success- 



262 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

fully. Five minutes later the visiting surgeon v^alked 
into the room and demanded an explanation and apol- 
ogy. Wood's reply was, "I saw that the right thing 
to do was to operate at once. I did it." 

But he would not apologize for having done right. 
He was first suspended and then dismissed — a reward 
which in one form or another has seemed to follow 
that thing in his character which instantly recognizes 
the right thing to do and courageously bids him do it. 

Leonard Wood believed in his own words — "a plas- 
ter over a man's mouth is as useful as eloquence within 
it." It is probable that his stoical will to sentence him- 
self to silence in times of stress has endeared Leonard 
Wood to the American people. When, without public 
explanation, this man, who, with Theodore Roosevelt, 
had roused the American people to the need of military 
preparedness, whom the ISTation regarded, not without 
reason, as the ablest organizer in our army, with the 
declaration of war with Germany looming but a few 
weeks away, was suddenly transferred to an obscure 
post in the South, he said nothing. Merely to reporters 
who asked him to make a statement, he said, ''I obey 
orders." When war came and Wood, the foremost man 
in our military establishment — our senior Major-Gen- 
eral, a Chief of Staff — was left to cool his heels in 
Charleston, S. C, while another General was placed in 
command of the American Expeditionary Force, he 
said nothing. 

When on the eve of sailing for France with the 89th 
Division, which ho had built out of raw material into 
the best division of the National Army, he was suddenly 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 263 

relieved of command and ordered to a desk job in San 
Francisco, he said nothing. But he did go to Washing- 
ton to plead with President Wilson that he be allowed 
to lead these men whom he had trained into action. A 
special board of military surgeons had pronounced him 
"fit." President Wilson listened to Wood's plea of 
justice and Wood did not have to go to San Francisco, 
but he did not go to France. He was ordered back to 
Camp Funston to train troops. And all anybody could 
get Wood to say was, "All that I feel privileged to say 
regarding my talk with the President is that he was 
very courteous and very considerate." 

And so he went back to the Kansas plains, while the 
great army that he had long urged, commanded by 
officers made in a vast school of his own conception — 
the "Plattsburg idea" ' — went into battle and won. 

"I am leaving for Camp Funston to-morrow," said 
Wood, when his plea to be allowed to fight was turned 
down, "where I shall give the best that is in me to the 
training of the boys who will be ordered to that camp." 
And he did. Not a word of protest out of him. Had 
he wished to speak, he could have stirred the country. 
"I obey orders." The disappointment was heart- 
breaking; another man might have sulked in his tent. 
"I will give the best there is in me," said the man who 
stayed home. 

When the news came to the men of his division that 
Leonard Wood was not to lead them in France, they 
were bitter. When he returned from Washington, 
every officer in Camp Funston was waiting to greet him. 
Realizing their youth, sincerity, and loyalty to him. 



264 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

Wood once more diplomatically effaced self. He told 
them not to concern themselves with his case, but to 
give all that was in them to the great task before them, 
and to think of nothing else. "There isn't anything to 
be said," he told them; "these orders stand, and the only 
thing to do is to do the best we can — all of us — to 
win the war." 

Theodore Roosevelt is credited with having said : 
"Others talked about building the Panama Canal. I 
did it." Speaking of Leonard Wood's achievement in 
transforming Cuba into a clean, up-to-date, law-abiding 
country, Theodore Roosevelt said: "He was put down 
there to do an absolutely new task. He did it." The 
resemblance betv/een the two men is amazing — little 
talk, much action, big results. Roosevelt the man is 
dead, but in Wood his spirit lives. And that spirit, 
that same fearlessness to do right, that same gift of 
looking ahead and being ready, the same tenacity and 
determination, that same deep Americanism, is going 
to bring Leonard Wood to — what ? 

In 1016 a man, a party leader in Republican poli- 
tics, sat at the end of a long-distance telephone in a 
committee room of the convention hall in Chicago. 
At the other end was Theodore Roosevelt. "If I can- 
not be nominated I will support Leonard Wood," Roose- 
velt had told that man a few days before in conference 
at Oyster Bay. And now it was the eleventh hour of 
the convention, and the fight between the Roosevelt and 
Hughes supporters was almost at a deadlock, with 
Hughes slightly in the lead. "You cannot be nomi- 
nated," said the man at the 'phone. 



MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 265 

The voice from Oyster Bay — the voice that never 
yielded to defeat — answered in its shrill staccato : "I 
am the only man who can win the election on the Re- 
publican ticket — fight on," and the 'phone clicked. 

Hughes was nominated. Leonard Wood's name was 
not put before the convention. It was withdrawn at his 
own request. That was Wood, the friend — Wood, the 
man. 

Hughes was defeated. Many things have happened 
since then. Major-General Wood did not go to France 
in command, neither was his friend Theodore Roosevelt 
permitted to go. Again their lives paralleled. Wood, 
the father of the Plattsburg idea, the apostle of pre- 
paredness, the great organizer and soldier, "stood by" 
during the Great War. His services in the East, the 
South, and the West were the services of a great organ- 
izer and trainer of men. Then suddenly out of the air 
sprang a "Wood League for Presidency." It popped 
up in various states from Maine to California. No 
one sponsored it ; it was spontaneous — the tribute of 
the people to the great soldier and executive, a tribute 
to Wood's great character as an American. 

For days at the Chicago convention Major-General 
Wood's name was in the lead, for the nomination of 
President of the United States on the Republican 
ticket. But the party was divided. Wood was not a 
politician. He did not try to compromise. The two 
opponents joined their interests in favor of a "dark 
horse," and the man who had by large odds the greatest 
number of delegates stepped aside. 

No sooner was the campaign on than Major-Gen- 



266 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

eral Wood's voice was raised in support of the "dark 
horse" nominee, Warren G. Harding. 

Quietly, after election days were over, he returned 
to his Chicago headquarters. Hardly had the new ad- 
ministration at Washington come into power, when 
an acute condition arose in the Philippines. At once 
President Harding placed Major-General Wood at the 
head of a commission to report and make recommenda- 
tions. On the heels of his report Leonard Wood was 
designated by the President as Governor-General of 
the Islands. 

At sixty-one years of age, he took over the governor- 
ship and reconstruction of affairs in our turbulent pos- 
sessions in the Pacific. Welcomed by the native and 
the white man alike, his success in the Philippines is a 
foregone conclusion. 

Leonard Wood's greatest achievement is the love and 
confidence of the American people. His stern sense of 
duty, his Spartan character and his cumulative achieve- 
ments as a man, a soldier and an administrator, give 
him a permanent place in history, resplendent with 
honor and glory. 



CHAELES EVANS HUGHES 

(1862 ) 

A GREAT AMERICAN STATESMAN 




Copyright by Harris & Ewing 

CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 

(1862 ) 

A GREAT AMEEICAN STATESMAN 

THE Secretary of State is the custodian of 
National honor. He represents, ofBcially, the 
character of the Nation. Public opinion, there- 
fore, is an important consideration in the Presi- 
dent's mind when he makes this appointment in his 
Cabinet, for the Secretary of State must stand before 
the country as something more than a political cham- 
pion of his party, he must pass muster for certain 
acknowledged qualities of statesmanship. His name 
must represent leadership. He must qualify not only 
for his abilities as executive head of one of the chief 
departments of government, but his name must con- 
vey to the people a personal force of character. 

No one will deny that Mr. Hughes's acceptance of the 
portfolio of Secretary of State offered him by President 
Harding impressed the people of the United States 
with an assurance of safety and wisdom in the conduct 
of this branch of the President's administration. Mr. 
Hughes represented those high aims of National pa- 
triotism and sense of honor that are embodied in the 
Constitution. 

In short, as Secretary of State, Mr. Hughes demon- 
strates the type of American, that, rounded out by years 

269 



270 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

of maturity, can become an incorruptible character of 
manly principles. He is an example for the generation 
of young men who, like himself, began life with no 
worldly advantages to speak of. He rose to the dis- 
tinguished office because he grew up under no other in- 
jfluences than those he created for himself as he climbed 
the ladder of his career. 

It is interesting to see how, as a boy, a young man, a 
lawyer, a Governor, a Judge of the highest Court of 
Appeals, he reached the unique reputation for states- 
manship he holds in public opinion. It may help to 
indicate that character is the supreme opportunity of 
success in life, for young men. 

Mr. Hughes was never a spectacular figure in public 
life. Like his father, who was a Baptist minister, he 
had the plain, level, straightforward vision of the plain 
people. As a child he cared most of all for knowledge. 
As a young teacher he studied ; as a young lawyer he 
exposed ; as a Governor he reformed public service ; as 
a Judge he grew young in clarifying legal tangles. His 
whole character has been the native dignity of a plain 
American who sets justice and wholesome purpose in 
National affairs above everything else. In him was 
the independence that makes leaders among men. 
Leadership is a gift. It was demonstrated in Mr. 
Hughes, in childhood, as the following recollection of 
his first school-days demonstrates. 

A delicate, serious, but determined little boy of five 
years of age was being dressed for his first day at 
school. It was in Glens Falls, New York, where he 
was born; and the event was very important to his father 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 271 

and mother. His father, seeing how solemn the little 
boy was, whispered to his mother to let him off, but his 
mother who had herself been a school-teacher insisted 
that he must go. So, with his slate and his books under 
his arm, he was met at the gate of the house where his 
parents lived, by another little boy, slightly older, who 
took charge of him. He took hold of his hand, and as 
they went down the street together his father and 
mother watched them from the doorstep till they were 
out of sight. 

"It was with some heart-burnings that we saw him 
trudge down the street," his father said, recalling the 
incident. 

For the first two weeks, he seemed to enjoy the school 
immensely. He came home each day with a great 
deal to tell his parents about his lessons. Very soon, 
however, they noticed that he grew rather silent about 
them. One day he walked into his father's study and 
handed him a paper on which was written "Charles E. 
Hughes' Plan of Study." It was a list of studies and 
the hours and days on which each subject was to be 
taken up. His father asked him what it meant. 

"Father," said the little boy, "I don't want to go to 
school any more. The scholars are very slow in getting 
their lessons and the teacher goes over the same old 
thing time after time. I would like to study at home 
with you and mother, and I am sure I would have more 
time to play." 

One can look across the desk in the State Depart- 
ment in Washington at the frank, engaging presence of 
Mr. Hughes, and realize that his decisions or his plans 



272 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

are conceived with equal independence, because he is 
intrinsically self-reliant. His education began at home. 
His mother taught him mathematics, his father Greek 
and Latin. When he was ten or twelve years old he 
had found out the value of books. Curiosity, a greed 
for knowledge, developed studious habits. His boy- 
hood was spent in a daily routine of lessons. His im- 
agination was in books, especially scientific works. He 
spent more time in study than he did at play. 

He was a great traveler when he was a child, in imag- 
ination. One of his favorite amusements, on rainy 
days, was to go up into the attic of his home and sit 
there with a big railroad map spread on his knees. In 
this way he would follow the black lines on the map, 
read the names of the towns marked down, and imagine 
what those towns must look like. Especially he liked 
to read books about travel and adventure. 

His father, being a Baptist minister, was often moved 
from one church to another, so that the boy grew up in 
many parts of oSTew York State and New Jersey. He 
went to school in Newark, N. J., for a short while. 
Finally his father settled in New York City, and he 
went to Public School 35, on Thirteenth Street, where 
there were a great many boys who went to school with 
him who became famous men aftei^wards. 

The intention of his parents was that their son 
should become a Baptist minister. He himself wanted 
to be one. He was always very serious, and used often 
to discuss the points in his father's sermon after church, 
to find out some things he didn't understand. Until he 
grew up to be a young man it was his ambition to be 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 



273 



a minister. Even- when he was only seven years old be 
wrote religious articles which he used to show his father 
for his approval. 

When he went to the public school in 'New York he 
was only twelve years old, but he was already so ad- 
vanced in the education he had received at home, that 
he was at once put in a class with boys much older than 
himself. He won several prizes for composition while 
he was at this school, usually choosing very serious sub- 
jects. His mind seemed to be far beyond his years. 
He wrote, at that age, on subjects that most boys don't 
even think about. One of his compositions was called, 
''The Limitation of the Human Mind," and another 
"The Evils of Light Literature." 

Every one noticed one particular thing about Charlie 
Hughes in school, he did everything thoroughly. He 
did his work with an ambition to do it better than any 
one else. That was the chief thing about him. He 
thought more about work than he did about play and he 
was only thirteen when he received his certificate of 
graduation from Public School 35. He wanted to 
enter New York City College at once, but he was not 
old enough. So he changed his plans, and took a five 
years' course of private tutoring with his father. His 
character and the greatest part of his education he 
owes to his father and mother. 

When he went to Hamilton College, IST. Y., to take a 
theological course, it was still his intention to be a 
Baptist minister. Two years later he went to Brown 
University, in Providence, R. I. His first year was 
easy, because he already knew before he entered all 



274 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

there was to learn in that grade. It was always easy 
for Charlie Hughes to learn. He was not a close stu- 
dent because he had the faculty of mastering any sub- 
ject so quickly. In appearance then he was a stocky, 
steady, amiable youth. He wore his hair in the pom- 
padour style of that time, and a slight mustache ap- 
peared on his upper lip. In college he was called 
"Huggie" for short, a name given him by his college 
chums. 

It is said of Mr. Hughes, the dignified, somewhat 
austere Secretary of State, that no man ever "slapped 
him on the back" ; and yet "Huggie" must have been 
very popular, for he became an active member of the 
Delta Upsilon fraternity throughout his college course. 
In fact he held a prominent place among its members, 
traveling to other colleges to enroll new ones. He 
seized the social advantages of college life with the same 
quick grasp with which he later understood how to 
disentangle the problems of financial affairs that he in- 
vestigated when he was counsel for the legislative com- 
mittees investigating the Insurance Companies and the 
Gas Trust of New York. 

Anything that demanded investigation interested 
him. During his term at Brown University he visited 
the courts and listened to the arguments of the lawyers. 
He became fascinated with what he heard, the clever 
way the lawyers prosecuted for or defended their clients. 
Often he discussed these cases with his college chums, 
and his arguments impressed them with their logical, 
quick analysis. They advised him to become a lawyer, 
and he went to his parents and asked them if he might 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 275 

change his plans to be a minister and study law instead. 
Both his father and mother were disappointed. His 
father, remembering this important event vividly, said : 

"It was not until his Junior year that the trend of 
his mind changed, owing to the circumstances in which 
he was thrown. By chance, he attended the trial of 
several lawsuits in his college town and the love of law 
lying dormant in him was developed. He finally re- 
solved to take up the legal profession, but not before 
consulting his parents. We at once saw that the law 
had become a passion with him, and we withdrew any 
objections we might have had to his becoming a law- 
yer. He was pleased with our consent and threw him- 
self heart, and soul into the study of Blackstone." 

He decided all the important things in his life for 
himself. Before going to Brown University he had 
studied its curriculum, and liked it better than any 
other. It was his own wish to go there. One of his 
handicaps as a young man in college was his aptitude 
for everything he touched. His teachers noticed this, 
and noticed what strict attention he paid to his work, 
in classes and out of them. The fact was, he had de- 
veloped a remarkable gift of concentration, of apply- 
ing his whole mind to the subject he was mastering at 
the time. He was a calm, well poised, cheerful student. 
His invariable cheerfulness of manner was noticeable to 
his teachers. He went at his work as if he enjoyed every 
minute of it. And he was inquisitive about it. He 
was not satisfied with theories; he wanted to experi- 
ment for himself, to reach his own conclusions. He 
was intensely practical about everything. Theories had 



276 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

to be pulled to pieces before he could accept them. In 
college he demonstrated the manners and habits of 
mind that showed him to be a born leader. College 
athletics had not been introduced into college life in 
those days, so that he had no opportunity to be a 
football expert, but he was a leader in all other college 
interests. He excelled in literary knowledge and com- 
position, and especially in the executive details of his 
fraternity. His judgment on matters of college enter- 
tainment was always sought. He soon rose to the ex- 
ecutive council of his fraternity, and was elected presi- 
dent, which put him in control of the Delta Upsilon 
fraternities of the entire country. 

Having taken the prizes for literature and for "gen- 
eral attainment," he was graduated, delivering the vale^ 
dictory address. He looked so young at this time that 
various attempts he made to secure a job as teacher 
failed. As soon as the college authorities where he 
applied saw him, they smiled and insisted that he 
was too young to manage a class of young men. He 
concluded finally to apply by letter. He secured an 
engagement as a teacher at the Delaware Academy in 
Delhi, N. J., where he presented himself to the presi- 
dent of the academy to teach Greek and mathematics. 
He was received with surprise. Dr. Griffin looked at 
him with a pained expression and said to him: 

''My dear young man, there is no doubt about your 
ability to teach the branches for which you have been 
engaged, but how do you expect to rule the young gentle- 
men who will come under your charge ?" 

He did so very successfully, and having earned a 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 277 

little money which he needed to help him in his plans 
to enter Columbia Law School, he returned to New 
York. At Columbia he obtained a free scholarship of 
$500 which helped him materially. He was gradu- 
ated from Columbia when he was twenty-two, and was 
admitted to the bar the same year. His youthful ap- 
pearance, he decided, would be a handicap to him in 
his profession, so he promptly met that issue in his 
usual practical way, and grew a beard. 

Talking with a friend, he himself told the story of 
how he obtained his first job in a law office. 

''One of the fellows in the Law School asked me one 
day if I wanted to get into a fine law office," he said. 
"I said I didn't mind. It was a chance. Next day 
he introduced me to Mr. Carter, the senior member of 
Chamberlin, Carter and Hornblower. Mr. Carter, 
fortunately, was fond of young men, believed in them. 
He talked to me a good deal about his hobbies. One 
of them was German universities. The first thing he 
began to talk about after we were introduced was the 
advantage to a yoimg man at the University of Heidel- 
berg. I agreed with him, but as I had a living to 
make, the principal thing I wanted to know was whether 
I could get a job in his office. He seemed to like my 
practical style. It was not long before I was working 
hard on briefs." 

Mr. Hughes supplemented his work in this office, 
teaching special classes for Columbia students. His 
health broke down from overwork and he accepted a 
professorship of law at the Cornell University in Ithaca, 
N. Y. After two years in the open country he went 



278 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

back to work in the same law office, restored to health. 
He became a lecturer at Columbia. During his law 
practice, he married Mr. Carter's daughter. This was 
in 1888, when he had already established himself as a 
strong man in her father's office. It was a strength he 
had carefully built up during years of patient attention 
to the details of character, a strict devotion to duty. 
His care to neglect no opportunity was noticeable from 
the first day he applied for a position as teacher. 

Thus far there is much in the early part of Mr. 
Hughes's career to encourage young men of modern edu- 
cation and ability. What follows demonstates the uni- 
versal theme of leadership, the evolution of strong char- 
acter force. As this young lawyer's practice in the 
courts increased, it became noised about that he was 
incorruptibly honest. As to his methods, there was 
none of the brow-beating, none of the contemptuous 
insult prevalent among some lawyers. There was no 
overwhelming oratory. Politeness was his weapon in 
cross-examination, persistency in place of sarcasm, and 
a conciseness of development that forced a witness to 
state facts. Because the invaluable trend of his char- 
acter was honesty, Mr. Hughes became a National hu- 
man magnet for those who wanted to get at the truth. 
He was selected as special counsel for investigating com- 
mittees. In exposing the system of "syndicate trans- 
actions" among directors of insurance companies, he 
lifted the lid of money-combinations of which directors 
became wealthy through opportunities which came to 
them in their control of the huge investments of the in- 
Burance companies. He punctured the vicious circle of 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 279 

"mutual" corporations, and so spread a searchlight over 
a National evil that was growing. His brilliant ex- 
posure of the "Gas Trust" had brought him National 
recognition. He was forty-three when he became a 
potential leader of character. Work had become a 
habit. He often returned to his office after dinner and 
worked until midnight. 

Besides intrepid honesty, Mr, Hughes insisted al- 
ways upon personal liberty in handling his investiga- 
tions. 

"I will undertake this work," he said to the chair- 
man of an investigating committee, "provided I am not 
interfered with in any way in getting at the root of 
the matter." 

He declined the offer to run for the office of Mayor of 
New York, a political pillory he wisely escaped. When 
accepting the nomination for Governor of the State of 
New York, he said : 

"I shall accept my nomination without pledge other 
than to do my duty according to my conscience. If 
elected, it will be my effort to give the State a sane, 
efficient and honorable administration, free from taint 
of bossism, or of servitude to any private interest." 

Politically, as Governor, Mr. Hughes was indiffer- 
ent. He declined to make political appointments and 
he refused to hold secret conferences where political 
"deals" might be made. There were sharp battles be- 
tween the Governor and the Legislature. If the latter 
refused to pass a bill, he would say, "Very well, I shall 
appeal to the people direct," and forthwith he would 
call mass meetings and address them himself. The 



280 FAMOUS LEADERS OP CHARACTER 

Legislature ridiculed these appeals, for wliat effect could 
they have upon the power of the Legislature to oppose a 
bill? 

Governor Hughes would not stoop to political treach- 
ery, nor would he hide the ideals he had in mind from 
the people. These special mass meetings were his 
safety-valve. He replied to those who criticized them, 
"I am attorney for the people." 

In the shallow water of local State politics, Mr. 
Hughes floundered angrily sometimes. 

^'I have shown the politicians they do not control me ; 
now I propose showing the newspapers they cannot 
shape my actions." After a second term as Governor, 
in which Mr. Hughes said he wanted only to finish 
some reforms he had started the previous term, he was 
appointed an associate justice of the United States 
Supreme Court by Mr. Taft, who was then President. 

In 1916, the Republican Party, believing that the 
people would rally to the leadership of Mr. Hughes, 
finally coaxed him from the sacred zone of high office 
in the Supreme Court to accept the nomination for the 
Presidency. He polled a vote large enough to con- 
firm the opinion of the Republican Party, but was de- 
feated at election by Woodrow Wilson. 

Mr. Hughes may be regarded as a "conscript" in 
politics, conscripted for service to the Nation rather 
than for service to political entanglements. He became 
the Presidential nominee because the people wanted 
him. Mr. Harding's election, four years later, made 
it possible to "conscript" Mr. Hughes again in the Na- 
tional service of his country, as Secretary of State. 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 281 

In an address whicli he delivered in Washington while 
he was on the bench of the United States Supreme Court, 
Justice Hughes epitomized his own success in states- 
manship and character. Speaking of the American 
flag he said : 

"It means that you cannot be saved by the valor and 
devotion of your ancestors; that to each generation 
comes its patriotic duty ; that upon your willingness to 
sacrifice and endure, as those before you — rests the Na- 
tional hope." 



WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING 

(1865 ) 

PRESIDENT — CHAMPION OF SOUND 
AMERICANISM 




WARREX GAMALIEL HARDING 



WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING 

(1865 ) 

PEESIDENT — CHAMPION OF SOUND 
AMERICANISM 

WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING twenty- 
ninth President of the United States, elected 
November 2d, 1920, is an inspiring figure to 
young men because he represents above and beyond all 
other expectations of him, a safe and sound American 
citizenship. Mr. Harding's service to the people had 
no other precedent but that, before his nomination, to 
recommiend him. His life had been consistently 
normal, healthy, intelligent, conservatively Ameri- 
can. When he stood before the country, after his 
nomination by the Republican Convention in Chicago, 
there vras six feet of presentable Americanism, solid 
and sound in character. As the people looked over 
the open book of his life, thev read between the lines, 
over and over again, the assurance that if they elected 
him, he would perpetuate the unselfish, high-minded 
record of America for Americans that had been his 
creed from boyhood. 

There were no spectacular promises, no boastings, no 
threats in his pre-election campaign. He made no plea 
for original standards in National government nor did 

285 



286 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

he enthrone himself with superior pomp of manner. 
He had made himself a distinguished public speaker 
during his term in the Senate, so he was able to meet 
the people from the platform with eloquence. If there 
was one thing more than another that was noticeably in 
his favor, it was his inborn quality of thinking and 
talking to them in friendly counsel about the need of 
restoring the principles of equal franchise, of econ- 
omy, of dignity in our relations, and mutual helpful- 
ness. 

Mr. Harding successfully overcame the handicap of 
party feeling which swept the country against the Demo- 
cratic party (an element in his election which accumu- 
lated a majority of 7,000,000 votes), by winning for 
himself a personal respect for his agreeable tolerance, 
an outstanding element of his character. He was 
equipped for the high office he reached by inheritance 
no greater than that which many thousands of young 
men possess to-day. He did not arrive at the White- 
House through superior education, or any exceptional 
advantages by birth or fortune. His ambition was not 
an over-reaching force that pushed him up the ladder of 
fame. He seems to have moved along the way of life 
with singular contentment, satisfied to conduct him- 
uelf towards others always with consideration. 

Mr. Harding inherited these traditions from his 
parents, especially his mother. He was born in Cor- 
sica, Ohio. His early life, his training and above all 
his inheritance of amiable, intelligent, tolerant char- 
acter have contributed to his present high place in the 
world. That place was tenderly, industriously, in his 



WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING 287 

mother's mind for him when he was a baby. The 
comradeship that existed between the child and the 
mother was the most genuine and affectionate impulse 
of Mr. Harding's life. She was an ardent member of 
the Seventh Day Adventists, and the best versed woman 
in Sacred and Bible history in her community, a highly 
cultured, well read, progressive woman. 

She was Elizabeth Dickerson. An old daguerreotype 
of the Cival War days shows her at the age, serene 
and sweet, of sixteen, standing behind a solemn, serious 
young man, Tyron Harding (the President's father), 
also sixteen. This record of their romance reveals one 
thing, that the son takes his unusually handsome looks 
from his mother. After his mother's engagement, she 
insisted that they wait a year. After they were mar- 
ried, they began life in a little frame house in the 
small village of Blooming Grove near Caledonia, Ohio. 
Blooming Grove was so called because of its great va- 
riety of flowers in summer. Mrs. Harding, the Presi- 
dent's mother, had a passion for flowers all her life. 
Long after she had left the little house, when she had 
grown old, her son never forgot to see that she always 
had flowers in her room, till she died. They kept alive 
so many treasured memories of those first years in her 
son's life, when she dreamed a future for him that came 
true. As mothers are prone to expect wonderful things 
of their sons, Mrs. Harding had no mediocre expecta- 
tions for hers. 

When he was only a baby, she used to whisper the 
big secret in her he^rt to him. When he grew to the 
serious age of seven, when he could read, and argue 



288 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

and look wise, she used to say to him just as if she was 
sure of it: 

"Warren, stay with your books and some day you 
will be President of the United States." 

The truth of her prophecy did not dawn on him 
then, but it has never been forgotten. It came true 
for many reasons. His father's explanation of it is 
one reason: 

"Call it luck, or destiny, or what you will, things 
come right for some people and they came right for 
Warren. I ascribe it to his genuine, unassuming, good- 
natured way of dealing with people and with problems. 
I never knew Warren to use hard words or get into 
jangles to amount to anything." 

His antecedents were strong men and women. The 
Harding name appears in the famous English Dooms- 
day Book of 1086. To America they came at least a 
century before the Revolution. Before 1650, one 
Harding had settled in Boston, another in Salem, Mas- 
sachusetts, and another in Connecticut. Dr. Harding's 
family are direct descendants. 

Probably not much significance has been attached to 
this ancestry in the Hardings of Ohio. They have not 
given it much thought, if any. The fact that the name 
is now immortalized in the White House is sufficient 
proof that there should be ancestors worth having. 
However, Warren Gamaliel Harding belongs to the 
twentieth century, a man who has in him the growth 
and strength of the Middle West, which spreads its in- 
fluence and its men and women from coast to coast in 
enterprise, in production, in business industry, and in 



WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING 289 

patriotic positiveness. Among the Middle Western 
States, Ohio has produced many notable figures. 
McKinley came from the State, and Mr. Harding has 
been compared to his predecessor from Ohio. It is in 
the foreground of a new generation, of awakening world 
ideals, that this son, of Ohio stands in the White 
House to-day. 

Precociousness is not unusual among children in 
America. It is related in a recollection which Dr. 
Harding, the President's father, tells with unblushing 
pride, that his first-born learned his alphabet when he 
was four years old. Such incidents never lose their im- 
portance. 

"I was away from home for the day," said Dr. Hard- 
ing, recalling his son's triumph, ^'and our young son, 
now arrived at the dignity of kilts and underpants, 
laid his hand on his mother's knee as she was sewing 
before the fireplace. 

" 'Mother, I want to learn to read,' he said as 
seriously as a preacher. And so Pha?be got a long 
piece of cardboard, the bottom of a shoe box, I think, 
and drew it off in squares and marked all the capital 
letters with a stick of charred wood from the fire, 
and Warren learned his A, B, C's, all of 'em, before I 
got home for supper." 

His father justly regarded him, after this feat, as 
a "quick study." He could memorize long poems be- 
fore he was four years old, and his greatest ambition in 
childhood, wherever he went, was "to speak a piece." 
This talent was very noticeable in the boy Harding, for 
he took the utmost pleasure in reciting to an audience. 



290 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

"Mother, will it do for me to speak my piece now ?" 
was the invariable question on his mind whenever they 
took him to see the neighbors. He was, of course, en- 
couraged to recite. He enjoyed the applause, and usu- 
ally made an elaborate bow, when he had finished. 
His father never recalls an occasion when he had stage- 
fright, or was ever embarrassed by strangers. It came 
natural to him to address crowds and he enjoyed it. 

Mother love guided the boy in all his problems of 
childhood and manhood. His devotion to his mother 
in her old age was as tender as hers had been for him 
in his childhood. He saw that she had fresh flowers 
in her room every Sunday, no matter whether he was 
at home or away, until she died in 1910. He usually 
took the flowers to her himself. Since her death her 
son in the White House still clings to the thought — the 
fresh flowers on the President's table on Sunday recall 
her memory and hold it sacred. 

He spent most of his boyhood doing what a small- 
town farm boy would do — chores. Up to the age of 
sixteen, with the exception of reciting, he was occupied 
with the more or less commonplace but useful task of 
earning extra money by odd jobs, milking, working in 
the fields, painting fences, driving a team. He was 
very large for his age, shy, awkward as big boys often 
are ; and very serious, with an inclination to write, with 
sudden outbursts of poetry. He learned to set type be- 
fore he was sixteen in the office of the Blooming; Grove 
Argus. It was an ambitious little village, for it boasted 
of its own brass band, in which the President played a 
tenor horn. It is claimed by some recorders of this 



WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING 291 

period of the President's youth that he really played the 
comet, while others insist that it was a trombone, the 
"sliphorn" as they used to call it. Upon the event of 
the opening ceremonies of the Erie Railroad in Chicago, 
Warren Gamaliel Harding went with the band, at a 
cost of $2.40, in a helmet and imiform. It was the 
first parade the President ever saw, in a large city. 

He was graduated from Central Ohio College, which 
was formerly located in Iberia, Ohio, though to-day it 
no longer exists. There he earned the degree of Doctor 
of Laws. But, in the memory of those in Iberia who 
knew him, the great achievement in Mr, Harding's 
term at college was the splendid coat of paint he gave 
the door of Dr. Virtue's office. The village people for 
a long while referred with pride to this bit of paint- 
brush art, saying how well its color had lasted 
though painted "forty years ago by Warren Harding." 

During his son's college days, Mr, Harding's father 
had leased a small farm near Iberia from which, after 
his son's graduation, he moved to Marion, Ohio. The 
President had picked up, besides some learning, the 
trades of house-painting, farming, bricklaying, construc- 
tion work on a railroad, and printing. 

It was while he was working as a teamster for Mr, 
Payne in the construction of the Marion and Benton, 
Ohio, Railroad, that he was courting Mrs, Harding, 
He was then almost eighteen, just at the close of his 
college career. 

For a time Mr. Harding worked as a printer on a 
Democratic newspaper. He even wrote locals for this 
paper, which was the beginning of his career as an 



292 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

editor. Both he and his father, however, were strong 
supporters of James G. Blaine, the Republican candi- 
date. One morning the young printer came to work in 
the Democratic printing office wearing a Blaine cam- 
paign hat. He was promptly dismissed. When he was 
nineteen, with Jack Warwick, another printer, he 
bought out the Marion Star, then a struggling news- 
paper. He set his own editorials, and addressed the 
wrappers to the subscribers. The responsibilities of an 
editor were explained to him by his father. 

"I told Warren when he bought the Star that I 
didn't want him to abuse people." his father said. "I 
don't know whether the advice was necessary or just 
thrown in for good measure. At any rate, that is the 
policy he followed . . . for the thirty odd years that 
he had owned the Star he did so without the vilifica- 
tion of anybody in any issue of it. That was what I 
tried to inculcate in Warren as a little boy and as a 
young man. If you can't say good about a person, 
keep silent, and after a while your silence has the same 
effect and burns even deeper than the abuse. In his 
own precinct in Ohio (when he ran for President), 
Warren carried it five to one, and when the count was 
telephoned from the Court House up to his home, I re- 
member, he laughed and said, 'They don't seem to like 
me much around here.' " 

It was a system in Mr. Harding's election which he 
carried out rigidly. He never replied to personal at- 
tacks made upon him by political opponents, openly or 
secretly. 

Mr. Harding's success with two country newspapers 



WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING 293 

gradually brought him into political favor, but he didn't 
get his first political appointment till after he had spent 
fifteen years in the editorial sanctum in Marion, Ohio. 
By that time every man, woman and child knew and 
loved him. In 1900, when he was forty, he was elected 
to the Ohio State Legislature. He served four years, 
and at the end of that time became Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor of the State for two years. Four years later, in 
1910, he was defeated in his campaign for Governor 
of Ohio. Five years elapsed before he was elected 
to the United States Senate. He went to Washington 
in 1915, and in 1920, was nominated for President of 
the United States and elected. 

The record is unique in the history of the White 
House. 

In his quest for information on National topics Mr. 
Harding visited Europe three times, studying foreign 
systems of government, conditions of labor, and peoples. 
Before taking his seat in the United States Senate he 
visited the Hawaiian Islands. As a speaker on ques- 
tions of economics, agriculture and industrial condi- 
tions, he gained a National reputation that paved the 
way to his great popularity as a candidate for the Presi- 
dency. In the Senate he was known as a brilliant and 
convincing speaker, and sponsored a bill for prepared- 
ness that won the endorsement of Colonel Roosevelt. 
His work on the Committee of Foreign Relations gained 
him approval of his party and the people, who recog- 
nized his lofty statesmanship and high sense of public 
duty, his far-seeing vision and intimate knowledge of 
foreign affairs. Shortly after he entered the Senate he 



294 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

was selected Chairman of the Republican ]!^ational Con- 
vention. Mr. Harding's reputation for sound qualities 
of Americanism, his unyielding principles of justice 
and his infallible democracy, good will, and sound eco- 
nomics made him a safe and harmonious choice for his 
party. 

The nomination of the tall, impressive, eloquent per- 
sonage at the Republican Convention in Chicago, in 
1920, was, however, a surprise. Mr. Harding had not 
been a seeker after office. He had resorted to no tricks 
of sensationa'lism to impress the American people. 
With the announcement of the nomination, the conven- 
tion was given a picture of the next President, Warren 
Gamaliel Harding. They saw a handsome man, who 
looked to be about fifty, commanding of manner — an 
ideal Presidential figure, though less known to the 
public than his rivals for the greatest honor cqnferred 
by the American people. 

Mr. Harding's overwhelming triumph at the polls 
confirmed the choice of the convention. In his in- 
augural address were revealed his dominant character- 
istics as a man of the highest and most admired Amer- 
ican type — tolerance and personal liberty. As he 
passed from one problem to another, he faced the issues 
with calm and deliberate good will. He showed the 
rare gift of harmonizing men's views to the broader 
ideals of his mind. He looks toward Europe with the 
dignified, sympathetic eye of an American who is striv- 
ing for the best international relations. He amiably in- 
duced a disarmament conference in Washington, to re- 
duce the evils of war and taxation. His pacifism was 



WAEREN GAMALIEL HATIDING 295 

the reaction of a world weary of war — yet unblinded 
that the passions and conflicts of men might precipi- 
tate it. He is the man of peace, with power to make 
war, but with a oneness of purpose towards peace and 
prosperity, for the destiny of America in the world's 
new affairs, and a neighborly friendliness for nations, 
little and big, needing our help at the great period of 
reconstruction. 



JUDGE KENESAW MOUNTAIN 
LANDIS 

(1866 ) 

THE SUPREME COURT OF BASEBALL 




Copyright by Moffett, Chicago 

JUDGE KENESAW MOUNTAIN LANDIS 



JUDGE KENESAW MOUNTAIN 
LANDIS 

(1866 ) 

THE SUPREME COUET OF BASEBALL 

THE dignity of the Court does not depend upon 
the imposing presence of the Judge. He may 
be a small, slender, humorous little man, and still 
command the fear, affection, and respect of his country, 
as Judge Landis always did on the bench. From the 
time he was a small boy, till his hair became white, 
he was always growing up. There is in his character 
the sort of leadership that is not uncommon among 
American boys who are born in such humble circum- 
stances that they just have to rise. If they don't, no 
one ever hears of them. Of course Judge Landis was 
the kind of boy who wanted to get ahead in the world 
from the very first. He believed in fair play, but he 
also had his own ideas of how a boy should advance 
himself, which was business-like from the very begin- 
ning. His ambitions to be highly educated were not so 
strong as his ambitions to go to work for himself. He 
wasn't very particular about what kind of work it 
should be, either, so long as it offered a good busi- 
ness outlook. When ho wasn't ''much bigger than a 
grasshopper," as the boys used to say of him, just 

running around the hay-wagon, or driving the cattle to 

299 



300 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

and from the pasture on his father's farm near Logans- 
port, Indiana, he came to the conclusion that the proper 
use of mathematics was not brought out in the school- 
books. They said nothing about why a boj had to 
learn algebra, when all he needed was a knowledge of 
addition and subtraction, with a quick eye for the multi- 
plication table. He was intensely practical. He 
couldn't see where a knowledge of algebra could be of 
any use to him in getting a job. And, after all, that 
was his chief absorbing ambition as a school-boy, to get 
out and work for himself. He had an insatiable curi- 
osity to get out into the world, there was so much a 
boy had to find out in life that school told him nothing 
about. 

Another peculiarity about this little boy was that, 
once he reached a conclusion, he acted upon it. He was 
a most independent little live-wire from the day 
he was born in Millville, Ohio. He seemed to have 
come into the world with a determination to make his 
own way in it from the start, by going ahead on his 
own hook. He was the youngest son of seven children, 
and the other six did everything he wanted them to. 
There was something solid, irresistibly solid, about 
young Landis, even when he wasn't much higher than 
a small corn-stalk; as solid almost as Kenesaw Moun- 
tain, a name with which his father christened him for 
a reason. It was a good reason, take it all around; 
although, when the boy grew up to be a prominent figure 
in the world, he did not quite forgive his parents for the 
honor they conferred on him, because he was as much 
like a mountain as a mole-hill is. In stature and phy- 



JUDGE KENESAW M. LANDIS 301 

siqiie, he was anything but mountainous. Being the 
youngest son, there was concentrated in this little boy 
all the hope and sentiment of his parents. He became 
one of the closing chapters in his father's biography. 
Before he was born, the chief thing that had happened 
in the life of his father occurred at Xenesaw Mountain 
during the Civil War. It was there that his father, a 
Union Army surgeon, lost a leg in a surprise attack by 
the Confederate troops. It was an event he wished 
to perpetuate in the family, and he thought there would 
be no better way than to have a Kenesaw Mountain 
Landis of his own, always about the house. 

It didn't worry the boy very much, his name was not 
anything he expected to succeed with in the world more 
than any other American boy he knew. It was a good- 
enough name, it was his, and he meant to keep it all 
his life. His boy mind was too busy with other things. 
The predominating thought, from the time he was per- 
haps twelve years old, was to get a job. 

There were no jobs in school. There w^ere a lot of 
lessons, too, that didn't seem to help one in getting a 
job. By the time young Kenesaw Mountain Landis 
was fourteen, he looked about as small as an ant-hill 
in comparison to a mountain. But he must have felt 
as big as one, for he confided to one of his older brothers, 
a reporter on a local newspaper, that he "wanted a 
job." So he began his career of inquisitive interest 
in a search of the truth that brought him to the unique 
position in the world of a man whom other men trusted, 
a confidence he never betrayed. His curiosity to know, 
to see, to understand the true motives of men in the 



302 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

world, was born in him. He bad more tban the or- 
dinary curiosity of a boy. It was a trait in him so 
highly developed that he had contracted, in boyhood, 
the habit of finding out things for himself, quietly, 
but at great pains for the accuracy of his investiga- 
tions. 

That is why, just as the dawn was breaking, a small 
boy could have been seen, if any one had been up and 
around, with his nose flattened against the window of 
the local undertaker's shop, peering in to find out who 
was dead in the town that morning. He was scared of 
course, and he ran from the place as fast as he could, 
once he had satisfied himself that he knew positively 
what he wanted to know. Although his job was de- 
livering newspapers on a route to the regular sub- 
scribers, he didn't trust everything he read in them. 
By looking in at the undertaker'^ shop, he was sure 
about the accuracy of the obitviary news, at least. 

A dollar a week was his salary for this "job," and he 
managed always to save a little out of it. That was 
the day when a nickel was a lot of money to a boy, when 
a cent was a great deal. From contact with the worldli- 
ness which a printing-press suggests to an ambitious 
youngster, little Kenesaw Mountain began to have long- 
ings, growing pains to see something of the world him- 
self. Next to the printing-press thei*e was food for 
thought in the great steam locomotives that puffed about 
the railroad yards with so much noise and power. The 
train which went whizzing by the station at Logansport, 
full of grown people, decided this boy that a job on the 
railroad had great possibilities of adventure beyond, 



JUDGE KENESAW M. LANDIS 303 

just round the curve of rails beyond the town where the 
trains disappeared. 

The next step in his career was a railroad job. 
Strictly speaking, it wasn't much; it was a long way 
from the job of a conductor, for instance, which he 
would have liked more than anything. Still, the 
bottom of the ladder which he wanted to climb was 
better than no ladder to climb up at all. He hired out 
as office boy in the train-dispatcher's office of the Van- 
dalia Eailroad, with a watchful eye out for a job as 
brakeman on freight trains. He'd often heard, of 
course, of Indianapolis, the golden gate through which 
all country boys in the State hoped to enter the prom- 
ised land of manhood and business adventure. There 
were many brakemen he had talked with about Indian- 
apolis, who went there very often on the freight trains. 
One morning he asked the "boss" for the job. The 
"boss," looking him over, saw only an eager small boy 
asking an impossible question, and promptly told him 
to "go back and sit down." It occurred to him then 
that his appearance was against him for the job ; no one 
seemed to believe that he was big enough to do danger- 
ous work. So he started to demonstrate that he was. 
He became one of the champion amateur bicycle riders 
of Indiana. 

A bicycle in those days was far from being safe sport. 
They were that old-fashioned kind, with one big wheel 
and a very small one on a rod, like an iron tail, behind. 
The saddle was so high above the ground tliat it was all 
a small boy could do to reach up to the handle bars and 
hop into the saddle from a little step behind. Once in 



304 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

the saddle, it was like being on a big horse, high up from 
the ground. Finding that he had acquired some local 
fame as a bicycle expert, his practical mind set to work 
to turn this talent to account. The way he went about 
this determination showed that he had a keen compre- 
hension of sporting character. 

It was the custom, at that time, to include bicycle 
races among the sport exhibitions at the County Fairs. 
Substantial prizes were offered for the winners. Young 
Kenesaw Mountain entered one or two races, satisfied 
himself that he could win, and promptly surveyed the 
situation of bicycle-racing as an occupation. He ob- 
served that there was a great deal of wasteful competi- 
tion. Many contestants entered the races who had no 
other qualifications than misguided advice or unreason- 
able hope. It was a pity to see the long list of starters, 
if not sometimes discouraging to a boy who needed the 
prize-money. He hit upon a plan to challenge the idle 
vanity of over-confident contestants. He bought a num- 
ber of valueless but impressive medals of all sorts and 
kinds, which he pinned on his vest. The contestants 
usually registered their names in the morning for the 
races to be run off in the afternoon. Adorned with 
these spectacular trophies, that looked as though they 
had been conferred upon him for former prowess in 
bicycle events, he would stroll about the County Fair 
grounds where the expectant contestants could see him. 
The impression he made was in his favor, for many of 
them, believing that only a champion could have been so 
decorated, withdrew their names, and his competition 
was of course reduced. He never told any one what 



JUDGE KENESAW M. LANDIS 305 

these medals represented, and no one asked him. His 
victory was one of silent reproach to the egotism of 
others. He won so many prizes that he accumulated 
what he heard men talk about as "working capital," 
and with this money he plunged into an independent 
venture, that failed. 

He was scarcely seventeen when he transformed a 
local hall into a roller-skating rink. It took all the 
capital he had won at the races. Just when he was 
about ready to open up for business, a iickle streak 
changed the public fancy; roller-skating went out of 
fashion, and Kenesaw Mountain was once more broke. 

These incidents, which were merely his boyish way 
of showing that he was in a hurry to be a man, were 
replaced by the ambition to be independent in thought 
and deed, unhampered by mere business details. He 
resolved that money was not the greatest incentive in 
the world to a young man who had ideas about how 
the country ought to be run. He acted at once upon 
this conclusion, and decided to be a lawyer. 

He was no doubt influenced a great deal by his 
father's old Commander, Judge Walter Q. Gresham, 
who in the Landis home was the family idol of all that 
was good and fine in manhood. In fact the only reason 
that his father had moved his family from Millville, 
Ohio, to Logansport, Ind., was to be near his old com- 
rade of the Civil War. 

The impression young Kenesaw Moimtain made 
among his college mates at the Cincinnati Law School 
was entirely in keeping with the prevailing character- 
istic of his career, a complete indifference to outward ap- 



306 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

pearances, a defiance of all college traditions. He had 
very little money, which may have heen the reason he 
dressed as if he had just come off the farm. He was 
more or less ignored at first by the habitual college- 
boy type. He was especially curious about the basic 
justice and uses of college fraternities which he did not 
join. To his independent, wholly American turn of 
mind, there was an element of injustice in these so- 
cieties. He intuitively resented organization power, 
being by temperament and feeling pledged to the con- 
stitutional expedient of this Republic, a rule by major- 
ity vote. Without comment or criticism he deliber- 
ately created a power by vote to counteract the power 
of organization of the college fraternities, and soon 
found himself winning by class elections a control of 
the social life of the college, thereby depriving the fra- 
ternities of that prerogative. He always opposed pri- 
vate monopoly by secret organization ; he always ab- 
horred class differences. It was a trait with which he 
was bom that has perhaps been the basis of his distin- 
g-uished character. Once he had decided to be a lawyer, 
he put into practice the ideals with which he was subse- 
quently to reduce the organization power of one of the 
giant trusts of his own country. 

After a term at the North Western University, he 
secured a diploma and opened a small, obscure office in 
Chicago. After some months of quiet and uneventful 
inertia (a period which many young lawyer^ endure 
uncomplainingly), a stranger in Chicago stumbled into 
his office with a minor case. Being the first chance 
young Landis had to demonstrate the latent ambitions 



JUDGE KENESAW M. LANDIS 307 

of his profession he insisted on taking the case into 
court, instead of settling it out of court, as another 
lawyer would, and attracted attention by his arguments 
and general conduct. During a succeeding period of 
inactivity, his father's old friend Judge Gresham, a 
Federal Judge of Illinois, was appointed Secretary of 
State in Cleveland's Cabinet, and invited the young 
lawyer to go to Washington, with him, as his private 
secretary. 

Washington, to young Landis, deep-rooted in the sub- 
soil of individual liberty, was in his own humorous, 
whimsical fashion a place of infinite rebuke. It was 
an experience which adjusted any restlessness he might 
have had before, as to the advantages of a political 
career. The doctrines of the United States Govern- 
ment were so intrinsically planted in his being, that he 
regarded politics in the light of emergency rather than 
in the light of a permanent opportunity. 

He found ample field in Washington for the play of 
sly humor which lurks always in men of big simplicity 
of character. For instance, he saw that the clerical 
staff of the Government, especially the array of secre- 
taries, big and little, affected in their manners and 
clothes a forced dignity that tickled his fancy. His 
own position among them, as private secretary to an 
important Cabinet member, compelled a degree of awe 
towards him that he pretended to exact. His own 
clothes were always shabby, loose, formless accouter- 
ments that gave him an easy air of slovenly protest to 
dress, which disturbed the routine of careful attention 
to sartorial details. Mr. Gresham himself leaned to- 



308 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

ward this outward democracy in clothes and in man- 
ner, and usually kept his hat on at his desk in the State 
Department. Though not openly contemptuous, young 
Landis affected a solemn dictatorial countenance, with a 
serious, deep voice. He became a sublimated terror to 
the clerical family in Washington. He turned every- 
thing to some humorous opportunity in his own daring, 
amusing way. One of his pet victims was Mr. Thurber, 
Mr. Cleveland's private secretary, a rather timid, ner- 
vous, highly conscientious official, with an over-anxious 
attitude in his work. To Thurber's office young Landis 
would go, when he felt especially mischievous, and sol- 
emnly lecture him upon the evils of overwork, implor- 
ing him to work less, to conserve his health. Then he 
would stride out, leaving his victim more anxious than 
ever. The sly mischief with which Judge Landis so 
often punctured the weak points in an argument in 
his court was inherently a characteristic faculty of his 
nature all his life. He declined an offer by Mr. Cleve- 
land of an appointment as Minister to Venezuela. At 
the death of Mr. Gresham he left Washington and all 
its political glitter behind him and returned to Chi- 
cago to practice law. In Washington, however, he met 
Miss Winifred Reed,^ whom he married after he left 
there. 

It was President Roosevelt who appointed him, in 
1908, Federal Judge in Illinois. His personal atti- 
tude towards this appointment has never been that of 
an officeholder but that of a servant of the people. 

This was especially obvious when, after seventeen 
years' service as a Federal Judge, he resigned in Febru- 



JUDGE KENESAW M. LANDIS 309 

ary, 1922, to devote his time entirely to the dictator- 
ship of America's greatest sport — baseball. 

He did not announce his resignation publicly, in ad- 
vance. After his usual day in court, he merely walked 
into his chambers and superintended the removal of 
his effects. It was a disordered room, filled with an 
accumulation not merely of personal trophies of the in- 
tervening years, but of personal expressions of regard 
and respect from old friends and admirers, which filled 
the ofiice. He was particularly solicitous about two 
busts, one of Gresham and one of Lincoln, that had been 
conspicuous in his chambers. Also the propeller of an 
aeroplane his son Eeed had flown in during the war, 
some portraits of famous men, and an old family clock 
from the farm-homestead in Indiana were affectionately 
guarded. His friends were of all classes, high and low, 
and they stood around in the dumb anxiety of farewell 
greetings, that they could not put into words. Tears 
were plainly annoying the Judge himself, who kept 
brushing them off, with the back of his hand. The old 
bailiff came out of a sick bed, ill with pneumonia, in a 
raging snow storm, to say good-bye, and the Judge, 
bundling him up in his own muffler, sent him home at 
once. He took his last lunch as a Federal Judge at the 
same modest little lunch counter at which he had always 
taken it, for so many years, — and passed on to the new 
jurisdiction of American baseball. 

Among leaders of character Judge Landis is con- 
spicuous for the democratic ideals of the rights of the 
people, for the people. It was because of his incorrupt- 
ible spirit of fair play, and strict honesty in decisions; 



310 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

because of unique direct vision of justice and honesty 
in human entanglements as well as legal, that he was 
asked to retrieve the reputation and honor of American 
sportsmanship which had gone temporarily astray in 
the baseball clubs. He had made a deep impression 
upon his countrymen long before, when he imposed the 
immense fine of $29,400,000 on the Standard Oil Cor- 
poration to establish the principle that the United 
States Government demanded allegiance in business, 
and registered again the principles of Washington, that 
equal rights must be maintained. 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 

(1869 ) 

A JUDGE WHO BELIEVES ALL 
BOYS ARE GOOD 




Courtesy of Mr. Frederick Ilill Meserve 

BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 

(1869 ) 

A JUDGE WHO BELIEVES ALL 
BOYS ARE GOOD 

BECAUSE he knew that a boy who "snitched" was 
not a real juvenile criminal, Ben Lindsey be- 
came known to boyhood when he was only thirty- 
two as "the Judge who'll give a square deal." 

He knew that "snitching" was a mistake, that steal- 
ing was, too, and that the "kids" who belonged to gangs 
often made mistakes that they didn't realize at the 
time. Judge Lindsey created a new way of treating 
bad boys and girls who were brought before him. In 
his Juvenile Court in Denver, Colorado, he discovered 
that most "kids" needed a little friendly advice. It 
was all very well to punish a "kid," but what happened 
after he was punished? The "kid" became sullen, re- 
bellious, or was kept from being "bad" through fear. 
Judge Lindsey argued with the boy this way : 

"J^o good bein' afraid; let's cut out all 'snitching' 
and tell the truth, and then we'll see what's the best 
thing to do." 

When Ben Lindsey was brought by his parents to 

the West, the Civil War was just over. They had been 

obliged to give up their home in Tennessee, and like a 

313 



314 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

great many other men and women of the South who had 
lost all they had, they had to go to work. His father 
died soon after they came North and he and his mother 
set out to support themselves and the rest of the family. 
Ben got a job as a messenger boy. He thought he was 
pretty lucky to get it, and of course, in a way, he was 
lucky, because he earned some money. But it was more 
important in another way, for during that time in his 
first job, the future Judge learned all about the bad 
boy. Messenger boys have to be bright enough to see 
everything that's going on around them, and Ben was 
educated in the street school, where promotion often 
led to jail, and jail led to a completely hardened crim- 
inal when the first sentence was done. 

He made a lot of mistakes when he was a boy him- 
self, which he acknowledges. They were the kind of 
mistakes that the law forbids, mistakes that give the 
"cop" the right to seize the "kid" and bring him before 
the Judge. 

As a boy, Ben was never "swiped," but he came so 
precious near it that he understands perfectly how a 
"kid" feels when he is brought into a courtroom for 
the first time, and knows that he is going to be put in 
prison. It is too late then to wish you hadn't made 
the mistake. The "kid" does one of two things — he 
either looks the Judge squarely in the eye when he hears 
himself sentenced to the reformatory school ; or he cries, 
and trembles, and can hardly stand up on his feet from 
sheer terror. If a lie will help, the "kid" will lie to the 
Judge, and that's one thing Juvenile Court won't 
stand for. 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 315 

There are a great many other things it won't allow 
either, which proves that it was a lucky thing for the 
"kids" and their parents that Jndge Lindsey had once 
been a messenger boy, and found out all about real 
boys, good and bad. He had managed to study up 
enough law in night school to pass his law examinations, 
and then he got into politics in a small way. Being a 
politician helped him a little at first, because it secured 
for him a temporary job as a Judge, filling out the unex- 
pired time of another man. He didn't want to be a 
Judge. What he really wanted to be was District 
Attorney, but he failed and took what he could get 
from the political crowd he belonged to. He did his 
work on the bench acceptably, doing only just what the 
law told him to do, and paying little or no attention 
to the inward character of the cases that came before 
him. One day something sensational happened in the 
courtroom. 

He had just sentenced a young man for petit lar- 
ceny, and wearily had called the "next case." Sud- 
denly the courtroom was echoing with the wild, ago- 
nized shriek of a woman. Savagely, incoherently, piti- 
fully she staggered to the Judge and accused him of in- 
justice, of being an "unmerciful Judge," and she told 
him that her boy was a good boy, that he had just made 
a mistake. Something deep in the conscience of the 
Judge reached the heart of the man, and he realized 
that he had been passing sentence as if it were merely 
a routine job to send young men to jail. This ago- 
nized protest of a mother against the injustice of a law- 
that had not taken into account the mother's love for a 



316 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHAEACTER 

child, or the child's love for the mother, awakened in 
the young man acting as Judge a sense of duty. 

"It was an awful cry, a terrible sight, and I was 
stunned," said Judge Lindsey, remembering the inci- 
dent, "I looked at the boy prisoner again, but with new 
eyes now. I called him back, and I called the old 
woman before me. Comforting and quieting her, I 
talked with the two together as mother and son, and 
found the boy had a home. I had been about to send 
that boy into the association of criminals in a prison, 
because the law compelled me to, and he had a home and 
a mother to teach him better." 

The Judge suspended sentence, he went to the boy's 
home, and he became a sort of guardian and helped the 
mother to bring that boy up successfully. That was 
the turning-point in the career of that very young 
Judge; he became a big brother to the small boys who 
were not bad, but who made mistakes. 

There was no difference, the Judge thought, between 
"swiping" something that belonged to some one else, and 
stealing it, but something in the recollection of his own 
boyhood told him that boys didn't really want to "swipe" 
or "snitch." Most boys had a keen, unerring sense of 
the square deal and hated underhand methods. The 
boy who "swiped something" was the first "probation 
case" which led to the wonderful record of the cele- 
brated Juvenile Court in Denver, Colorado. It was 
more than that, it was the discovery that Ben Lindsey 
knew how to talk to "kids," how to get the truth out 
of them, how to talk the first lie of their young lives out 
of their souls. 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 317 

All the good and surprising things that Judge Lind- 
sey has done in the course of his development of crime 
prevention by stopping its growth in a juvenile state, 
depended entirely upon the sympathetic skill of Ben 
Lindsey himself. The mere change of laws which he 
brought about to help him in his idea of a Juvenile 
Court will not guarantee that success in the future. 
Judge Lindsey has made of his idea something for him- 
self. 

His love of children, the ease with which he can pene- 
trate the character of a boy brought into his court, is 
an amazing genius of his own. Whether a boy scowls 
at him, smiles at him, cries or trembles, he can place that 
boy's character in his own mind at once. And he loves 
them all. That is the pervading spirit of Judge Lind- 
sey's court-life. 

The more frightened the boy appears to be, the more 
quickly the Judge gets right down off the bench and sits 
dovm on a camp stool as an equal with him. He has 
found it necessary in obstinate cases, where the child is 
so completely entangled in the terror of his position, 
for the Judge to put on his hat and take a walk with 
the ''kid" so that they can talk it over in the open air, 
away from the terrible courtroom that he dreads so 
much. Then, if advisable, the Judge may take the 
prisoner home to dinner with him, just to make him 
feel that the Judge is his friend. His object is to re- 
store in the "kid" a sense of honor, to make him feel 
that he's just as good as the Judge, if he only "Keeps 
straight." 

There was no such thing in criminal courts before. 



318 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

The law camo first in the Judge's decision, and the 
human element scarcely entered into the matter at all. 

A young fellow, only twenty, who was under sen- 
tence for murder was approached by Judge Lindsey for 
an explanation of how he could have committed any- 
thing so atrocious. The expTanation showed the boy's 
impression of a Criminal Court. 

"It was this way," explained the boy, telling of his 
first arrest when he was twelve yeaps old. "The guy on 
the high bench with the whiskers says, "What's the boy 
done, officer?" And the cop says, says he, 'He's a 
bad kid, your honor, and broke into a store and stole 
a razor!' and the guy on the high bench says, 'Ten 
dollars or ten days' — time, three minutes ; one round 
of a prize fight." 

In Judge Lindsey's court the "kids" see no "guy on 
a high bench." Instead, a rather small, clean-cut 
gentleman walks up to one of the boys. It's the Judge. 

"What's the matter, my boy?" he says, putting his 
hand on his shoulder. "You've been making a 
mistake ? Well, lots of fellers make mistakes. That's 
nothing. I've made mistakes myself, worse'n yours, I 
guess. What was it, officer ?" 

"Stealing isn't right, my boy, now is it ?" He turns 
to the other boys waiting to be brought before him 
and pleads with them, "Is it, fellers ? Is stealing 
right ? You know as well as I do it's weak to swipe 
things." 

Nothing hurts a boy as much as to tell him he's 
weak. Then he goes on driving into the conscience, 
down into the very heart of the "kid." 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 319 

"I know how it is," he says, "it's a temptation. It's a 
chance to get something easy ; something you want ; or 
something you can sell to get something you want. 
Wanted to go to the show, maybe. Well, it takes a 
pretty strong feller to down the desire to take a chance 
and see the show. But it's wrong to swipe things, 
'tain't fair, 'tain't brave, it's just mean and it hurts the 
feller that steals. Makes him steal again, and by and 
by he's caught and sent up — a thief. Now you ain't 
a thief, and you don't want to be. Do you ? But you 
were too weak to resist temptation so you were caught. 
Ought to cut it out. Not because you were caught. 
That isn't the reason a feller oughtn't to steal. It's be- 
cause it's mean and sneaky, and no fellow wants to be 
mean and sneaky. He wants to be on the square. 
What are you crying for ? Afraid of being punished ? 
Pshaw, a feller ought to stand up and take his medi- 
cine; but we don't punish boys. We just try to help 
'em get strong and be square. Even when we send 
fellers to the Golden Institute, it isn't for punishment ; 
it's only to help a kid that's weak get strong enough to 
control himself. So we aren't going to punish you. 
First off, a kid ought to be strong enough and suffi- 
ciently on the square to tell the truth about himself. 
Ought to tell not only about this time, when you're 
caught, but all the other times too. You wait and after 
court we'll go back in chambers and we'll have it out, 
just us two." 

The Judge had been a boy who must have made some 
mistakes himself when he was young. He knew the 
language of boyhood delinquency, and he could talk to 



320 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

them in it. He took the terror out of the courtroom, 
the children themselves finding that the Judge was 
really their friend. "The Judge gives a fellow a 
show," as the J expressed it among themselves. The 
Judge did a great deal more than that, he actually 
proved that boys and girls have a wisdom that sur- 
passes the law. They may not reason so well but they 
have an instinct of honor that grows weak only as they 
grow up. 

The Juvenile Court became a E^ational point of in- 
terest, and Ben Lindsey, the Judge, found himself 
talked about as a "reformer." He didn't ask for that 
distinction, but he did love his work. 

"N^ever let a child get away with a lie in his soul," 
says Judge Lindsey. Admitting that children are won- 
derful liars, the Judge can always tell when they are 
lying to him. 

"You can't fool the Judge," the boys say. Once a 
boy tried to. He "lied straight" and since the Judge 
will not "help" a boy who won't tell the truth he told 
the officer to take him to jail. On the way the boy 
changed his mind, and came back. 

"You're right, Judge," he said, "and you're game. 
I lied to you, I lied like a horse thief, and I couldn't 
fool you a little bit. You've beat me. Judge, and I'll 
tell the truth." 

The truth as the Judge sees it, though, is the truth 
as a boy understands it. No boy ever "snitches" on a 
friend, even though he could do so truthfully. He 
reasons with the boy. He agrees with him that it is 
all wrong to "snitch" on other fellows, but it is all right 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 321 

to "snitch" on yourself. He drove out fear, and the 
old ideas of punishment in this way, substituting confi- 
dence and a boy's sense of honor. He was experi- 
menting at first with a new kind of law, and one 
of the earliest cases before him demonstrated that 
if you trust a boy he will return the trust. This in- 
volved charges against seven boys caught by a police- 
man playing rowdy tricks on street cars^ throwing 
stones, annoying passengers and conductors. The Judge 
got them together in his chambers and explained to 
them that while he saw it was fun for them, it wasn't 
exactly fun for the other people; it made life hard 
for them. This was something the boys hadn't thought 
about; they only looked upon this as "fair game," 
fellers who "would give you a chase if you held them 
up," and what's more fun than to be chased, and 
escape ? 

" 'Tain't fair, is it,, fellers ?" asked the Judge. 

"No, sir." 

"Well, what do you say to cuttin' it out?" They 
agreed as for themselves, but there was the gang, — the 
rest of them to deal with, and the Judge knew all 
about that side of boy life. 

"Will you fellers bring in the rest of the gang to- 
morrow?" asked the Judge. 

"Sure," they would. But the "gang" didn't come, 
though the original seven showed up. 

"Well, what are you going to do ?" asked the Judge, 
putting the problem of getting the gang into court to 
them. 

"A warrant," said the Judge. "I'll write you out a 



322 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHABACTER 

warrant and you serve it on the gang. But what shall 
I write ?" 

"You begin it," said one Kid, "begin by saying, — 
'1^0 kid has "snitched," but if you'll come the Judge'll 
give you a square deal.' " The next day the whole 
gang, fifty-two kids, came into court. The Judge 
placed them on their honor. 

"I'm going to let you police your neighborhood your- 
selves," he began, "I've told the trolley company that I 
will be responsible for there being no more trouble with 
you. ^o\v the company said I'd be foolish, that you 
kids would go back on me. I said you wouldn't, and I 
still say so. You see, I'm depending on you fellows, 
and I don't think you'll throw me down. What do you 
say ?" 

"We'll stay with yer, Jedge," they shouted, and they 
did. They organized a Kids' Citizens' League, and 
played square with the Judge. 

Instead of "breaking up" the gang, the old system of 
police regulation, the Judge turned them to public use. 
He gave those kids a chance to show character. His 
success in putting boys on their honor has been 
phenomenal. For instance, there was a boy called 
"Major." He never had any home, so he had 
what the boys call the "move-on fever." He would 
roam all over the country. The Judge tried many 
ways to cure him of it, but failed, until one day he called 
on the Judge to say good-bye before starting out on an- 
other adventure. The Judge urged him to resist the 
temptation; he confessed he was too weak. Finally 
the "Major" agreed that perhaps he'd better go to the 



BENJAMIN BURR LINDSEY 323 

Golden Institute, because it might help to cure him. 
The Judge made out his commitment papers, gave them 
to him, gave him money to pay his carfare, and told 
him to report to the Superintendent of the Institute. 
He did so. That was the Judge's way of showing the 
boys that it was not enforced punishment, it was for 
their good ; and they could go there or not, once they 
started. 

The success which Judge Lindsey has had in win- 
ning the confidence of boys is remarkable. They wil] 
tell him everything, even the bad things they do, and the 
failures they encounter in doing them. They "snitch" 
upon themselves, and finally look upon the reformatory 
as a benefit. When a "kid" tells the Judge what an 
easy chance he saw to steal and not get caught, the 
Judge says to him, "Gee, that was a good chance, wasn't 
it, that's certain. But, 'tain't square, kid." 

Judge Lindsey believes that character in all boys 
is really good if you watch for their mistakes. 

During the twenty odd years of his service in the 
Juvenile Court of Colorado, Judge Lindsey established 
a unique reputation that is world-wide. Whenever 
child delinquency is a problem of social welfare, the 
methods adopted by Judge Lindsey are discussed. No 
other court has ever achieved the prominence in its 
decisions of juvenile cases that the Juvenile Court of 
Colorado has received. No other Judge has ever un- 
derstood the psychology of the child-mind so well as 
Judge Lindsey. His application of the statute laws 
has been conspicuous because he has applied them with 
a special genius for their uses and abuses. Judge 



324 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTEK 

Lindsey's keen sense of humor, which is one of the 
natural elements in children, has been helpful in mak- 
ing parents and teachers realize that juvenile crime 
more often springs from a source of playful mischief 
in children, than from actual criminal instinct. He 
has studied the welfare of boys and girls from a prac- 
tical observation with an expert sympathy that has 
made him a celebrated authority on this subject, the 
world over. 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 

(1872 ) 

THE MAN WHO STOOD FOR LAW 
AND ORDEE 




Copyright by Harris & Ewing 

CALVIN COOLIDGE 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 

(1872 ) 

THE MAN WHO STOOD FOR LAW 
AND ORDER 

FORTY years ago, high up among the Vermont 
hills in a little town named Plymouth, a ten- 
year-old boy lived, worked, and studied as thou- 
sands of American boys have done; and probably 
dreamed, as all boys do, of his future career. This boy 
was Calvin Coolidge. His father, Col. John C. Cool- 
idge, ran a little country store at Plymouth and also 
owned a typical New England hill farm. Calvin was a 
rather slightly built, quiet, studious boy, in no way ab- 
normal, though possibly a little more serious-minded 
than the average youngster of his age and circum- 
stances. Yet boys born and brought up in such remote 
towns as Plymouth, Vermont, easily develop such char- 
acteristics as silence and reflectiveness. There is a so- 
lemnity about the lofty hills and rugged landscape of 
northern New England which imprints itself often upon 
those nurtured in this environment. Plymouth rests 
quiet and beautiful in a little hollow surrounded by 
hills densely green and cool in the summer, a gorgeous 
pageantry of nature in the autumn, and in the winter 

bleak but for the redeeming promise of the evergreens 

327 



328 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

which make this portion of New England always de- 
lightful and always loved by those of New England 
blood. 

Calvin Coolidge, on November 2, 1920, was elected 
Vice-President of the United States. 

What was there in the boy who trudged the roads 
about Plymouth on his way to the little one-room dis- 
trict school, helped his father in the local store, and 
did the ordinary chores of the farm boy, which pointed 
him towards the Vice-Presidency of his country? 
What was it that took place between those days of his 
boyhood and the present to develop the boy's qualities 
into the man's successes ? 

The boy Coolidge was a typical New England Ameri- 
ican boy. His father was a typical Vermont farmer. 
He was not without those comforts which are necessary 
for a wholesome life. He had no desire for those lux- 
uries which are superfluous. John C. Coolidge, Cal- 
vin's father, was an upstanding American who worked 
hard and achieved a normal success. He had, and still 
lias, a good farm which has always been wisely and 
profitably cultivated. The Plymouth store was like 
countless similar stores, scattered through similar New 
England towns. In the summer time Calvin went 
barefooted as did and still do American youngsters who 
live in the country and are free from the restrictions 
imposed by city life. In brief, Calvin Coolidge led an 
entirely normal and typical life as a boy on a Vermont 
farm. He had presumably a better mental equipment 
than the average boy, but his success rests upon two 
things — first ; He was by nature, probably by in- 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 329 

heritance, thoughtful ; second : He had an invincible 
determination to make the utmost of every opportunity 
for improvement. 

To understand the basis of his career, it is well 
to know a little concerning his ancestry, not because it 
was unusual, for it was not; but because that ancestry 
furnished him a foundation upon which to build, just as 
the ancestry of thousands of boys furnishes them a foun- 
dation which, if they understand it and utilize it, is a 
mighty incentive and aid to their progress. 

The Coolidge family came to America in 1630 and 
settled in what is now W^tertown, Mass. They were 
farmers by inclination and necessity, for in those far-off 
years tilling the ground was essential to livelihood for 
most settlers in this new country. They were sturdy, 
clean, respected people. Calvin Coolidge's great-great- 
grandfather left Lancaster, Mass., where the family 
then lived, and with his family struck out into what was 
almost a wilderness in Vermont. There he. established 
himself and family on the old military road to 
Ticonderoga, and later at the place which is now the 
little village of Plymouth, but which was called by the 
settlers, as it is still called by most of those who live 
there, the Notch. The life of those early settlers was 
rigorous, wholesome, and happy. They never con- 
sidered whether they were wealthy or otherwise. They 
found in the New England soil opportunities for suf- 
ficient prosperity, and this they obtained. New Eng- 
land farming in the hill towns is hard work. The soil 
is rich but requires persistent labor to make it produc- 
tive. It develops strong men. 



330 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

John C. Coolidge, the Vice-President's father, is a 
hardy, strong-featured, erect, clear-eyed American, rep- 
resentative of one of the best types of our nation. He 
looks many years younger than he is to-day and he 
has the comfort of a life well spent and the satisfaction 
which comes from service of value to his State and Na- 
tion. He has served his State government and is 
known among Vermont leaders as a man of accurate 
judgment, high character and native wisdom. He was 
a good father for a boy in whose mind grew up the de- 
sire and determinatio.a to be of public usefulness. 

Calvin Coolidge, after the years spent in the district 
school and on the farm in Plymouth, went from there 
to Ludlow, Vt., twelve miles away, where he attended 
Black River Academy. This school was like many 
similar schools which one may find in hundreds of 
American towns. It had every possible facility for 
the development of character. For the boy who wanted 
seriously to study and to develop himself it provided 
opportunity as all such schools do provide. Young 
Calvin Coolidge continued at Black River Academy a 
thoughtful bo3^ He studied well, lived frugally, and 
he had time for the natural fun of any healthy Ameri- 
can boy. Rather slight of build, wiry and quiet, he 
was not boisterous and was not fitted or inclined for 
athletic sport. He had the usual boy's love of fun -and 
he took the usual boy's share of pranks and hard knocks. 
All the time he was strengthening his own character 
and was acquiring education. What he learned he re- 
membered ; and this quality of retentiveness, partly in- 
born and partly acquired by his own determination to 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 331 

succeed, has always been characteristic of him and is 
one of the factors in his success in public life. 

While he attended school at Ludlow, he retained, of 
course, close contact with his home a dozen miles up 
the hills. Plymouth has, perhaps, half a dozen houses 
grouped near a cross-road, a union church, one store, 
a little schoolhouse, and a cheese factory. About it 
rise the 'New England hills. The influence of heroic 
nature and mighty spaces stayed with the Coolidge boy 
thus throughout the formative period of his life. 

Calvin Coolidge's birthday was July 4, 1872. His 
mother, Victoria J. (Moor) Coolidge, died when he was 
twelve years old ; five years later he lost his only sister. 
These were severe blows to a sensitive boy. He was for- 
tunate, however, in the fact that within seven years he 
had a mother who was devoted to him and loved him 
with almost the love a mother has for her own son. This 
affection between step-mother and step-son lasted 
throughout her life, which ended recently. 

From Black Eiver Academy Calvin Coolidge later 
went to the Academy of St. Johnsbury. His course 
there was not dissimilar to that in Ludlow, except that 
it was his first long step away from home at Plymouth. 
From St. Johnsbury he went to Amherst College in Mas- 
sachusetts. It is not of record that he told anybody 
what direction his ambition took. His efforts had been 
applied to building stronger and higher the foundation 
upon which he was to rest his future. His career at 
Amherst College followed lines much like those at school, 
although here he was even further removed from home 
and more under the necessity of self-discipline and self- 



332 FAMOUS LEADERS OP CHARACTER 

dependence. His circumstances were those of thou- 
sands of other young men who seek education in Amer- 
ican schools and colleges. 

Here, as at school, he had not the physique nor had 
he the time for athletic sports. He was not frail, but 
he was rather too slight of build for baseball, football 
or other games. His health was good, and as he had 
worked hard out-doors on his father's farm he now 
worked hard over his studies. He found time for diver- 
sion and he made friends, although his habit of reticence 
remained with him. He lived inexpensively at college 
because it was the nature of his stock to be thrifty and 
because, while there was enough to carry him through 
college, there was not enough to waste. He was not at 
first conspicuous in college nor did he make any bids 
for wide .personal popularity. All the boys knew him 
and respected him. Many had a strong friendship for 
him and those who knew him best rated him highest. 
He studied sincerely and what he learned he remem- 
bered. In his Senior year, in competition with all 
American colleges, he won the first prize for the best 
essay on the "Principles Underlying the American 
Revolution." It is characteristic of him that when he 
received the gold medal which represented this achieve- 
ment he put it away in the drawer of his desk in the 
law office in which he then was reading law after gradu- 
ation, and told nobody about it. What interested him 
was the work and achievement of his thesis. Uor the 
visible decoration of winning he had no great regard. 
The incident is illuminating and suggestive. Through- 
out his career as a boy, a youth, and a man he has loved 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 333 

work for the sake of work and he has desired success 
as a means for further achievement. With decorations, 
show, and display he has little concern. 

By this time he had determined upon the profession 
of law. He was graduated from Amherst with the 
A. B. degree and was the Grove Orator at the Com- 
mencement exercises, a place assigned to wit and humor. 
He stepped now from the formative process of educa- 
tion into the next stage of development. He entered the 
office of Judge Hanmaond of Northampton, a leading 
lawyer, and there he entered upon the study of law. He 
applied himself industriously and he showed that quick 
keenness of perception which has been one of his char- 
acteristics in his public career. The law was his ob- 
vious field. He understood it and loved it. Here was 
developed, also, another of those qualities which later 
were to mark him as an exceptional man. Men enter 
professions with varying degrees of earnestness and 
with varying measures of regard for the profession they 
choose. He started upon the field of law with a com- 
plete sincerity and with a high respect for that profes- 
sion. No man in public life has held public office in 
greater respect or has occupied it with a more complete 
dignity than Mr. Coolidge. This attitude he formed 
or developed in his first year of reading law in Judge 
Hammond's office. It was another stone in the foun- 
dation he was building for his future career. 

He was an apt pupil. His progress was so rapid 
that after twenty months in Judge Hammond's office he 
passed the bar examinations and was admitted to prac- 
tice. 



334 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

At this point we find another foundation stone laid. 
He did not leave the small city of ^Northampton and 
seek large financial rewards or quick opportunity in a 
big city. He opened his law ofiice in the same city in 
which he had acquired his law education. He has gone 
far in public life since then. His name is familiar in 
every State of the Union. H^ has reached the heights. 
His law ofiice is where it was first established — in 
INorthampton. In that city, too, is his home. When 
he was thirty-three he married Miss Grace A. Goodhue 
of Burlington, Vt. They established their home in one 
half of a two-family house on Massasoit Street, North- 
ampton. That is their home to-day. It is a comfort- 
able house, unpretentious but attractive. There are two 
boys now, John and Calvin Jr. These two facts — that 
he has retained his original law office in ISTorthampton 
and that he and his family have been content to live in 
the same comfortable and sufficient home that was theirs 
before eminence came to him — attest the stability of 
his character and the precision of his judgment of life's 
associations. It shows his realization of the fact that 
opportunity is less a matter of location than of deter- 
mination and work. 

He early entered active political life, not as a seeker 
of reward, but because through these chamiels he be- 
lieved he could best apply his abilities and in these ways 
he could best satisfy his ambition to serve his town and 
his city and State. He became a member of the North- 
ampton City Council in 1899. The next year he was 
made City Solicitor and filled that office two years. 
Later he served as County Clerk of Hampshire County 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 335 

under appointment by the State Supreme Judicial 
Court. In 1907 and 1908 he represented Northampton 
as Representative in the Massachusetts Legislature. 
In 1910 and 1911 he was Mayor of Northampton. 
The next year his district sent him to the Legislature 
as its Senator. He remained in the Senate four years, 
the last two of which he was President of that body. 
His address to the Senate upon taking the office of its 
President is one of the masterpieces of American 
political literature. In that speech he set forth what 
has often been called his motto : 

"Do the day's work." 

Upon his reelection to the Presidency of the Senate the 
following year he made a second speech of acceptance 
which attracted attention from the fact that it contained 
precisely forty-two words. It ended with these two : — 
"Be brief." In 1916 he was Lieutenant-Governor of 
Massachusetts; he was reelected in 1917 and 1918. 
These were war years and he was notably effective in 
preparing and executing plans for the part played by 
Massachusetts in the World War. In the fall of 1918 
he was elected Governor of the Commonwealth by a 
plurality of about 17,000 votes. In 1919 he was re- 
elected Governor by a plurality of more than 125,000 
votes. This was one of the largest votes given a Mas- 
sachusetts Governor. 

Mr. Coolidge's service to his State in both branches of 
the Legislature, as Lieutenant-Governor and as Gover- 
nor, further emphasized the stability of his character 
and the precision of his judgment. Accepting each of 



336 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

these offices as a tnist, he sought so to perform the duties 
connected with them that the State should be. permar 
nently better equipped through his efforts and because of 
his occupancy of office. As Governor he was particu- 
larly effective in reorganizing the State departments. 
It is noteworthy that such re-organization was carried 
through with a minimum of friction and with results 
which have raised the standard of public service. There 
was no raid on the personnel of the State government. 
There were no sensational methods employed. He ap- 
plied sound principles and he exercised good judgment. 
The result of this process or re-organization was perma- 
nently to strengthen the administration of public affairs 
in Massachusetts, so that when he went out of State 
office he left his commonwealth stronger and more effi- 
cient through his having served it. In his choice of men 
for appointive positions, he again showed that under- 
standing of the needs of each case, which constituted 
some portion of his success in public life. He selected 
able men and encouraged them to use their authority 
without fear of obstruction or interfere ace. Thus his 
service to his State through a succession of elective 
offices was marked by permanent construction and by a 
continuous manifestation of fair-mindedness. He 
built upr for himself in the minds of the people of Mas- 
sachusetts a feeling of confidence. 

Before his reelection in 1919, Calvin Coolidge was 
known and respected by the people of his State. Be- 
yond Massachusetts he had only that fame which nat- 
urally attaches to a Governor of that State. In Sep- 
tember, 1919, when the campaign for his reelection was 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 337 

going on, there occurred in Boston one of the crises of 
American history. The police of the city claimed and 
asserted the right to affiliate themselves as an organiza- 
tion with the American Federation of Labor. This as- 
sertion was opposed and denied by Edwin TJ. Curtis, 
the Police Commissioner of the city. Governor Cool- 
idge publicly declared he would support the Commis- 
sioner. Despite every proper effort to prevent such a 
catastrophe, the majority of the Boston police left their 
posts and the city was, given over- to disorder, anarchy 
and terror. The situation developed with appalling 
rapidity. It was of far more than local consequence. 
Boston suddenly presented an acute test of the authority 
of law and the invincibility of government. It was 
suddenly discovered by how thin a thread safety for the 
public held. Had failure of law and order been effec- 
tively demonstrated in Boston, there would unquestion- 
ably have followed in many parts of the country sim- 
ilar and possibly far worse disasters. The whole 
structure of American law-abiding democracy was sud- 
denly shocked and imperiled. Here was a National 
problem suddenly con\ientrated in the capital city of 
Massachusetts. Local authorities did what they could, 
but it was necessary that a more effective force should 
be applied immediately to prevent a tragedy. 

It was this situation which Governor Coolidge seized 
with a firm hand. His promptness of decision, the 
clarity of his presentation of the issue, the uncompro- 
mising insistence upon the authority of law, drew the 
attention of the Nation and won its immediate approval. 
To the assertion made in behalf of the striking police 



338 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

that tliey had a right to a dual allegiance and that they 
had a right to leave their posts in the public service, 
Governor Coolidge uttered the phrase which swept from 
one end of the country to the other and which summed 
up in one of the masterpieces of condensation, an unas- 
sailable truth that "There is no right to strike against 
the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." 
There was the issue made clear. 

This being in the midst of his campaign for reelec- 
tion, some of his associates, solicitous for his political 
welfare, urged him to compromise. He had restored 
order, State troops were in command of the situation 
and a new police force was being recruited. He was 
urged to consent to or approve of the restoration of the 
police who had left their posts. He would not compro- 
mise. It was represented to him that his attitude might 
array organized labor against him and defeat him for 
reelection. His reply to one man who put the case 
before him in that light was characteristic. It was 
this: "It does not matter whether I am reelected 
Governor or not." 

Within a few weeks he was, in fact, reelected by an 
avalanche of votes which attested the approval of his 
course. Labor did not oppose him, and in fact mem- 
bers of labor organizations overwhelmingly voted for 
him. 

Such was the incident which brought Calvin Coolidge 
into National prominence. For a few days, as Gover- 
nor of Massachusetts he had stood between law-abiding 
American democracy and the threat of anarchy and po- 
litical chaos. He had shown a capacity for judgment, 



CALVIN COOLIDGE 339 

decision, action, and firmness which appealed to the 
mind of America. 

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, 
in June, 1920, he was nominated for Vice-President. 
He had not sought the oSice. He had beea urged by 
many of his friends to be a candidate for nomination 
for the Presidency. In such a program he refused to 
have any part. When the pressure became insistent, 
he issued a public statement in which he said he was not 
a candidate. He would not deviate from that state- 
ment. At the Chicago convention his name was among 
those for whom ballots were cast for the Presidential 
nomination. When he was nominated for Vice-Presi- 
dent it was immediately apparent that he would be 
the convention's choice, and he was, in fact, nominated 
by an overwhelming majority on the first ballot. 

Thus the American boy, brought up under the simple, 
wholesome, invigorating, clean environment of a little 
town in the Vermont hills, became Vice-President of the 
United States. His foundation was character. His 
pathway was hard work directed not towards any spe- 
cific goal of office, but based consistently and unremit- 
tingly upon the motto which best characterizes his ca- 
reer: "Do the day's work." There is nothing magical 
in what he has done. He had an average American 
start. He had at the beginning an average American 
equipment. He was neither rich nor poor. He liked 
work and he worked hard. Once when his father was 
asked what sort of a worker the boy Calvin was on the 
farm, he replied : 

"It always seemed to me that Calvin could get more 



340 FAMOUS LEADERS OF CHARACTER 

sap out of a maple tree than any other boy around 
here." 

Calvin Coolidge is in every way a representative 
American. lie has risen above the level of the aver- 
age man by making the utmost use of every capacity 
he had, by applying his best talents, and by keeping his 
judgments cold and his love for humanity wai-m. 



THE END 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF REFER- 
ENCES CONSULTED 

In the quest of facts in the preparation of this volume, 
it has been necessary to consult many books and magazine 
articles of the period. The author desires to give credit to 
all published works from which data has been secured. 
Some of the works consulted are out of print, and the 
publishers out of existence, and the authors dead. In all 
cases letters have been sent to every publisher notifying 
them of the purpose and desire of the author to give full 
credit. Acknowledgments have been received in most 
cases. In the following list the author begs to give credit 
to published works and their authors, although in most 
cases other sources of information in the preparation of 
the sketches have been resorted to, including the descend- 
ants of the deceased subjects, and the living personages 
themselves, in the interest of accuracy and authoritative- 
ness. The author holds no publisher or author or in- 
dividual consulted responsible for any of the facts or 
statements in these sketches of great Americans. He has 
presented from all sources of information such a com- 
posite as seems to reflect the subject, his character and 
the environment of his youth, his achievements, and his 
impress upon the period in which he lived or lives. 
Among other sources, the following books were consulted : 

The Bobbs-Merrill Company 

**OuR Common Country," by Frederick E. Sehorte- 
meier. 

The Century Co. 

"William Lloyd Garrison, The Story of His Life 
Told by His Children. ' ' 

341 



342 REFERENCES CONSULTED 

"Recollections op Grover Cleveland," by George 

F. Parker. 
** Grover Cleveland," by Richard Wilson Gilder. 

Chappie Publishing Co., Ltd. 

"Warren G. Harding, The Man," by Joseph Mitchell 
Chappie. 

T. Y. Crowell Company 

"The Happy Life," by Charles W. Eliot. 

Dodd, Mead & Company 

"Charles Sumner," by Anna Laurens Dawes. 

Doubleday, Page & Company 

"Recollections and Letters of General Lee," by 

Captain Robert E. Lee, Jr. 
"WooDROw Wilson," by Wm. Bayard Hale. 
"John Burroughs, Boy and Man," by Clara Barrus. 
"Up from Slavery," by Booker T. Washington. 

E. P. Button & Company 

"Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks," by Alexan- 
der V. G. Allen. 

Field's, Osgood & Co. 

"The Life of Horace Greeley," by James Parton. 

J. B. Ford & Co. 

"Recollections op a Busy Life," by Horace Greeley. 

Harper Brothers 

"The War, The World — Wilson," by George Creel. 
"Boys' Life op Theodore Roosevelt," by Herman 
Hagedorn. 

Houghton Mifflin Company 

"Charles W. Eliot," by Dr. Eugene Kuehnemann. 
"The Training for an Effective Life," by Charles 
W. Eliot. 



REFERENCES CONSULTED 343 

Hubbard Bros. 

"Cleveland and Hendricks," by "William Dors- 
heimer. 
Little, Brown & Company 

"Life and Letters op Edward Everett Hale," by 
Edward E. Hale, Jr. 

McClure's Magazine 

"Judge Lindsey, A Just Judge," by Lincoln Steffins. 

Moffat, Yard & Company 

"Memories and Milestones," by John Jay Chapman. 
J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company 

"Life by Sketches of W. J. Bryan," by Hon. 
William Sulzer. 

A. D. F. Randolph & Company 

"DwiGHT Lyman Moody and Ira D. Sankey." 
Fleming H. Revell Company 

"The Life of Dwight L. Moody," by W. R. Moody. 
Roberts Bros. 

"Memoirs and Letters of Charles Sumner," by 
Edward L. Pierce. 

B. B. Russel 

"Life and Public Service of Grover Cleveland,** 
by Frederick E. Goodrich. 

Charles Scribner's Sons 

"Robert E. Lee, Man and Soldier," by Thomas 

Nelson Page. 
"Early Memories," by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. 

The Sunday School Times Company 

"My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns," 
by Ira D. Sankey. 

The John C. Winston Co. 
"Dwight L. Moody," by J. W. Chapman. 



344 REFERENCES CONSULTED 

R. H. Woodward Co. 

"Life and Speeches op W. J. Bryan." 
Julian Burroughs 

"JofiN Burroughs." 
Col. Herman Dieck 

"Life and Public Service of Grover Cleveland " 
R. L. Metcalfe 

"Life and Public Services of W. J. Bryan." 



Selections from 

The Page Company's 

Books for Young People 



THE BLUE BONNET SERIES 

Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, 

per volume ....... $1.75 

A TEXAS BLUE BONNET 

By Caroline E. Jacobs. 

" The book's heroine, Blue Bonnet, has the very finest 
kind of wholesome, honest, lively girlishness." — Chicago 
Inter-Ocean, 

BLUE BONNET'S RANCH PARTY 

By Carolike E. Jacobs and Edyth Ellerbeck Read. 
" A healthy, natural atmosphere breathes from every 
chapter." — Boston Transcript. 

BLUE BONNET IN BOSTON 

By Caroline E. Jacobs and Lela Horn Richards. 
" It is bound to become popular because of its whole- 
someness and its many human touches." — Boston Globe. 

BLUE BONNET KEEPS HOUSE 

By Caroline E. Jacobs and Lela Horn Richards. 
" It cannot fail to prove fascinating to girls in their 
teens." — New York Sun. 

BLUE BONNET — DEBUTANTE 

By Lela Horn Richards. 

An interesting picture of the unfolding of life for 
Blue Bonnet. 

BLUE BONNET OF THE SEVEN STARS 

By Lela Horn Richards. 

" The author's intimate detail and charm of narratioa 
gives the reader an interesting story of the heroine's war 
activities." — Pittsburgh Leader, 



THE PAGE COMPACTS 



THE YOUNG PIONEER SERIES 

By Harrison Adams 

Eadi ISmo, doth decorative, illustrated, per 
volume $1.65 

TEE PIONEER BOYS OF THE OfflO; Or, 

Clearing the Wilderness. 

" Such books as this are an admirable meang of stimu- 
lating among the young Americana of to-day interest in 
the story of their pioneer ancestors and the early days of 
the Republic." — Boston Globe. 

THE PIONEER BOYS ON THE GREAT LAKES ; 

Or, On the Trail of the Iroquois. 

" The recital of the daring deeds of the frontier is not 
only interesting but instructive as well and shows tho 
Bterling type of character which these days of self-reliance 
and trial produced." — American Tourist, Chicago. 

THE PIONEER BOYS OF THE MISSISSIPPI; 

Or, The Homestead in the Wilderness. 
"The story is told with spirit, and is full of adven- 
ture." — New York Sun. 

THE PIONEER BOYS OF THE MISSOURI; 

Or, In the Country of the Sioux. 

" Vivid in style, vigorous in movement, full of dramatic 
situations, true to historic perspective, this story is a 
capital one for boys." — Watchman Examiner, New York 
City. 

THE PIONEER BOYS OF THE YELLOW- 

STONE; Or, Lost in the Land of Won^ders. 
"There is plenty of lively adventure and action and 
the story is well told." — Duluth Herald, Duluth, Minn. 

THE PIONEER BOYS OF THE COLUMBIA; 

Or, In the Wilderness of the Great Northwest. 

" The story is fuS of spirited action and contains much 
valuable historical information." — Boston Herald. 
A— 2 



BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 



THE HADLEY HALL SERIES 

By Louise M. Breitenbach 
Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, 
per volume . . . . . . • $1.65 

ALMA AT HADLEY HALL 

" The author is to be congratulated on having written 
such an apjiealing book for girls." — Detroit Free Press. 

ALMA'S SOPHOMORE YEAR 

*' It cannot fail to appeal to the lovers of good things 
in girls' books." — Boston Herald. 

ALMA'S JUNIOR YEAR 

" The diverse characters in the boarding-school are 
strongly drawn, the incidents are well developed and the 
action is never dull." — The Boston Herald. 

ALMA'S SENIOR YEAR 

" A healthy, natural atmosphere breathes from every 
chapter." — Boston Transcript. 



THE GIRLS OF 
FRIENDLY TERRACE SERIES 

By Harkiet Lummis Smith 
Each large l'2mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, 
per volume . . . . . . . $1.65 

THE GIRLS OF FRIENDLY TERRACE 

" A book sure to please girl readers, for the author 
seems to understand perfectly the girl character." — 
Boston Olobe. 

PEGGY RAYMOND'S VACATION 

" It is a wholesome, hearty story." — Utica Observer. 

PEGGY RAYMOND'S SCHOOL DAYS 

The book is delightfully written, and contains lots of 
exciting incidents. 

THE FRIENDLY TERRACE QUARTETTE 

These four lively girls found their opportunities to 
serve their country. The story of their adventures will 
bring anew to every girl who reads about them the reali- 
zation of what she owes to her country. 
A — 3 



THE PAGE COMPANY'S 



FAMOUS LEADERS SERIES 

By Charles H. L. Johnston 
Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, 
per volume ....... $3.00 

FAMOUS CAVALRY LEADERS 

" More of such books should be written, books that 
acquaint young readers with historical personages in a 
pleasant, informal way." — Nexo York Sun. 

FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS 

" Mr. Johnston has done faithful work in this volume, 
and his relation of battles, sieges and struggles of these 
famous Indians with the whites for the possession of 
America is a worthy addition to United States History." 
— New York Marine Journal. 

FAMOUS SCOUTS 

" It is the kind of a book that will have a great fascina- 
tion for boys and young men." — New London Day. 

FAMOUS PRIVATEERSMEN AND ADVEN- 
TURERS OF THE SEA 

"The tales are more than merely interesting; they are 
entrancing, stirring the blood with thrilling force." — 
Pittsburgh Post. 

FAMOUS FRONTIERSMEN AND HEROES OF 
THE BORDER 

" The accounts are not only authentic, but distinctly 
readable, making a book of wide appeal to all who love 
the history of actual adventure." — Cleveland. Leader. 

FAMOUS DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 
OF AMERICA 

" The book is an epitome of some of the wildest and 
bravest adventures of which the world has known." — 
Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

FAMOUS GENERALS OF THE GREAT WAR 

Who I^ed the United States and Her Allies to a Glo- 
rious Victory. 

" The pages of this book have the charm of romance 
without its unreality. The book illuminates, with life- 
like portraits, the history of the World War." — Bocheg- 
ter Post Express. 
A — 4 



'BOOKS FOB YOUNG PEOPLE 



HILDEGARDE- MARGARET SERIES 

By Lauba E. RicHAKDa 

Eleven Volumes 

The Hildegarde-Margaret Series, beginning with 
** Queen Hildegarde " and ending with " The Merry- 
weathers," make one of the best and most popular series 
of books for girls ever written. 

Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, 

per volume ....... $1.75 

The eleven volumes boxed as a set . . . $19.25 

UST OF TITLES 
QUEEN HILDEGARDE 
HILDEGARDE 'S HOLIDAY 
HILDEGARDE'S HOME 
HILDEGARDE'S NEIGHBORS 
HILDEGARDE 'S HARVEST 
THREE MARGARETS 
MARGARET MONTFORT 
PEGGY 
RITA 
FERNLEY HOUSE 

THE MERRYWEATHERS 
A— 5 



THb] FAOE COMPANY'S 



THE CAPTAIN JANUARY SERIES 

By Laura E. Richards 

Each one volume, ISmo, cloth decorative, illus- 
trated, per volume 90 cents 

CAPTAIN JANUARY 

A charming idyl of New England coast life, wliose 
success has been very remarkable. 

SAME. Illustrated Holiday Edition . . $1.35 

MELODY: The Stort of a Child. 

MARIE 

A companion to " Melody " and "' Captain January.'* 

ROSIN THE BEAU 

A sequel to " Melody " and " Marie." 

SNOW-WHITE; Or, The House in the Wood. 

JIM OF HELLAS; Or, In Durance Vile, and a 
companion story, Bethesda Pool. 

NARCISSA 

And a companion story, In Verona, being two delight- 
ful short stories of New England life. 

"SOME SAY" 

And a companion story, Neighbors in Cyrus. 

NAUTILUS 

" ' Nautilus ' is by far the best product of the author's 
powers, and is certain to achieve the wide success it so 
richly merits." 

ISLA HERON 

This interesting story is written in the author's usual 
charming manner. 



A— 6 



BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 



DELIGHTFUL BOOKS FOR LITTLE 
FOLKS 

By Laura E. Richards 

THREE MINUTE STORIES 

Cloth decorative, 12mo, with eight plates in full color 
and many text illustrations . . . . $1.75 

" Little ones will understand and delight in the stories 
and poems." — Indianapolis News. 

FIVE MINUTE STORIES 

Cloth decorative, square 12mo, illustrated . .$1.75 

A charming collection of short stories and clever 
poems for children. 

MORE FIVE MINUTE STORIES 

Cloth decorative, square 12mo, illustrated . $1.75 
A noteworthy collection of short stories and poems 

for children, which will prove as popular with mothers 

as with boys and girls. 

FIVE MICE IN A MOUSE TRAP 

Cloth decorative, square 12mo, illustrated . $1.75 
The story of their lives and other wonderful things 
related by the Man in the Moon, done in the vernacular 
from the lunacular form by Laura E. Richards. 



A NEW BOOK FOR GIRLS 

By Laura E. Richards 

HONOR BRIGHT 

Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.75 

No girl ever deserved more to have a series of stories 
written about her than does HONOR BRIGHT, the new- 
est heroine of a talented author who has created many 
charming girls. Born of American parents who die 
in the far East, Honor spends her school days at the 
Pension Madeline in Vevey, Switzerland, surroimded by 
playmates of half a dozen nationalities. As are all of 
Mrs. Richards' heroines, HONOR BRIGHT is the high- 
est type of the young girl of America, with all the in- 
dependence of character which is American to the core 
in young as in old. 
A — 7 



THE PAGE COMPANY'S 



THE BOYS* STORY OF THE 
RAILROAD SERIES 

By Burton E. Stevenson 
Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, 
per volume $1.75 

THE YOUNG SECTION-HAND; Or, The Ai>. 

VENTURES OF AlLAN WeST. 

" The whole range of section railroading is covered in 
the story." — Chicago Post. 

THE YOUNG TRAIN DISPATCHER 

" A vivacious account of the varied and often hazard- 
ous nature of railroad life." — Congregationalist. 

THE YOUNG TRAIN MASTER 

" It is a book that can be unreservedly commended to 
anyone who loves a good, wholesome, thrilling, informing 
yarn." — Passaic News. 

THE YOUNG APPRENTICE; Or, Ali.an West's 
Chum. 
" The story is intensely interesting." — Baltimore Sun. 

BOY SCOUT STORIES 

By Brewer Corcoran 
Published with the approval of " The Boy Scouts of 
Am,erica." 

Each, one volume, 12mo, cloth decorative, illus- 
trated, per volume $1.75 

THE BOY SCOUTS OF KENDALLVILLE 

The story of a bright young factory worker who can- 
not enlist, but his knowledge of woodcraft and wig- 
wagging, gained through Scout practice, enables him to 
foil a German plot to blow up the munitions factory. 

THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE WOLF PATROL 

The boys of Gillficld who were not old enough to go 
to war found just as many thrills at home, chasing a 
German spy. 

THE BOY SCOUTS AT CAMP LOWELL 

" The best book for boys I have ever read ! " says our 
editor. Mr. Corcoran has again found enough exciting 
material to keep the plot humming from cover to cover. 

A — 8 



BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 



THE MARJORY-JOE SERIES 

By Alice E. Allen 

Each one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, 
illustrated, per volume $1 . 50 

JOE, THE CIRCUS BOY AND ROSEMARY 

These are two of Miss Allen's earliest and most suc- 
cessful stories, combined in a single volume to meet the 
insistent demands from young people for these two par- 
ticular tales. 

THE MARTIE TV/INS: Continuing the Ad- 
ventures of Joe, the Circus Boy 

"The chief charm of the story is that it contains so 
much of human nature. It is so real that it touches 
the heart strings." — New York Standard. 

MARJORY, THE CIRCUS GIRL 

A sequel to " Joe, the Circus Boy," and " The Martie 
Twins." 

MARJORY AT THE WILLOWS 

Continuing the story of Marjory, the Circus Girl. 

" Miss Allen does not write impossible stories, but de- 
lightfully pins her little folk right down to this life of 
ours, in which she ranges vigorously and delightfully." 

— Boston Ideas. 

MARJORY'S HOUSE PARTY: Or, What Hap- 
pened at Clover Patch 

" Miss Allen certainly knows how to please the chil- 
dren and tells them stories that never fail to charm." 

— Madison Courier. 
A — 9 



THE PAGE COMPANY'S 



IDEAL BOOKS FOR GIRLS 

Each, one volume, cloth decorative, 12mo, . $1.10 

A LITTLE CANDY BOOK FOR A LITTLE GIRL 

By Amy L. Waterman. 

" This is a peculiarly interesting little book, written in 
the simple, vivacious style that makes these little maimals 
as delightful to read as they are instructive." — Nash- 
ville Tennessean and American. 

A LITTLE COOK-BOOK FOR A LITTLE GIRL 

By Caroline French Benton. 

This book explains how to cook so simply that no one 
can fail to understand every word, even a complete 
novice. 

A LITTLE HOUSEKEEPING BOOK FOR A 
LITTLE GIRL 

By Caroline French Benton. 

A little girl, home from school on Saturday mornings, 
finds out how to make helpful use of her spare time, and 
also how to take proper pride and pleasure in good 
housework. 

A LITTLE SEWING BOOK FOR A LITTLE 
GIRL 

By Louise Frances Cornell. 

" It is comprehensive and practical, and yet revealingly 
instructive. It takes a little girl who lives alone with 
her mother, and shows how her mother taught her the 
art of sewing in its various branches. The illustrations 
aid materially." — Wilmington Every Evening. 

A LITTLE PRESERVING BOOK FOR A 
LITTLE GIRL 

By Amy L. Waterman. 

In simple, clear wording, Mrs. Waterman explains 
every step of the process of preserving or "canning" 
fruits and vegetables. 

A LITTLE GARDENING BOOK FOR A LITTLE 
GIRL 

By Peter Martin. 

This little volume is an excellent guide for the young 
gardener. In addition to truck gardening, the book gives 
valuable information on flowers, the planning of the 
garden, selection of varieties, etc. 
A — 10 



BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 



THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS 

(Trade Mark) 

By Annie Fellows Johnston 
Each large 12mo, cloth, illustrated, per volume . $1.90 
THE LITTLE COLONEL STORIES 

(Trade Mark) 

Being three " Little Colonel " stories in the Cosy Comer 
Series, " The Little Colonel," " Two Little Knights of 
Kentucky," and " The Giant Scissors," in a single volume. 

THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY 

(Trade Mark) 

THE LITTLE COLONEL»S HOLIDAYS 

(Trade Mark) 

THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HERO 

(Trade Mark) 

THE LITTLE COLONEL AT BOARDING- 

(Trade Mark) 

SCHOOL 
THE LITTLE COLONEL IN ARIZONA 

(Trade Mark) 

THE LITTLE COLONEL'S CHRISTMAS 

(Trade Mark) 

VACATION 
THE LITTLE COLONEL, MAID OF HONOR 

(Trade Mark) 

THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT COMES 

(Trade Mark) 

RIDING 
THE LITTLE COLONEL'S CHUM, MARY 

WARE (Trade Mark) 

MARY WARE IN TEXAS 

MARY WARE'S PROMISED LAND 

These twelve volumes, boxed as a set, $22.S0. 
A — 11 



THE PAGE COMPANY'S 



THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART 

Cloth decorative, with special designs and 

illustrations $1.25 

In choosing her title, Mrs. Johnston had in mind 
" The Road of the Loving Heart," that famous high- 
way, built by the natives of Hawaii, from their settle- 
ment to the home of Robert Louis Stevenson, as a 
memorial of their love and respect for the man who 
lived and labored among them, and whose example of 
a loving heart has never been forgotten. This story of 
a little princess and her faithful pet bear, who finally 
do discover " The Road of the Loving Heart," is a mas- 
terpiece of sympathy and understanding and beautiful 
thought. 

THE JOHNSTON JEWEL SERIES 

Each small 16mo, cloth decorative, with frontis- 
piece and decorative text borders, per volume $0.75 

IN THE DESERT OF WAITING: The Legend 

OF Camelback Mountain. 

THE THREE WEAVERS: A Fairy Tale for 
Fathers and Mothers as Well as for Their 
Daughters. 

KEEPING TRYST: A Tale of King Arthur's Time. 

THE LEGEND OF THE BLEEDING HEART 

THE RESCUE OF PRINCESS WINSOME: 

A Fairy Play for Old and Young. 

THE JESTER'S SWORD 



THE LITTLE COLONEL'S GOOD TIMES 
BOOK 

Uniform in size with the Little Colonel Series . $2.50 
Bound in white kid (morocco) and gold . . 5.00 
Cover design and decorations by Peter Verberg. 
" A mighty attractive volume in which the owner may 
record the good times she has on decorated pages, and 
under the directions as it were of Annie Fellows John- 
ston." — Buffalo Express. 
A — 1« 



BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 



THE LITTLE COLONEL DOLL BOOK — First 
Series 

Quarto, boards, printed in colors . . . $1.90 

A series of " Little Colonel " dolls. Each has several 

changes of costume, so they can be appropriately clad 

for the rehearsal of any scene or incident in the series. 

THE LITTLE COLONEL DOLL BOOK — Sec- 
ond Series 

Quarto, boards, printed in colors . , . 31.90 
An artistic series of paper dolls, including not only 
lovable Mary Ware, the Little Colonel's chum, but many 
another of the much loved characters which appear in 
the last three volumes of the famous " Little Colonel 
Series." 

THE STORY OF THE RED CROSS: as Told to 
the Little Colonel 

Cloth decorative, 13mo, illustrated . . . §1.25 

This story originally appeared in " The Little Colonel's 
Hero," but the publishers decided to issue it as a 
separate volume. 

" No one could tell the story of the Red Cross with 
more vividness and enthusiasm than this author, and 
here she is at her best. No book published during the 
Great War is more valuable and timely than this appeal- 
ing story of the beginning of the Red Cross." — Neio 
York Tribune. 

" It deserves a place in every school as well as in 
every home where the work of the Red Cross is appre- 
ciated." — Evening Express, Portland, Me. 

" Not only VERY interesting, but has large educa- 
tional value." — Lookout, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

JOEL: A BOY OF GALILEE 

12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.90 
" The book is a very clever handling of the greatest 

event in the history of the world." — Bocheater, N. Y., 

Herald. 

A — 13 



THE PAGE COMPANY'S 



ONLY HENRIETTA 

By Lela Horn Richards. 

Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.90 

" It is an inspiring story of the unfolding of life for a 
young girl — a story in which there is plenty of action 
to hold interest and wealth of delicate sympathy and 
understanding that appeals to the hearts of young and 
old." — Pittsburgh Leader. 

" A rare and gracious picture of the unfolding of 
life for the young girl, told with sympathy and under- 
standing." — Louismlle Times. 

"This is one of the very nicest books for sixteen- 
year-olds that we have seen in many months. It is gay, 
sweet and natural." — Lexington Herald. 

HENRIETTA'S INHERITANCE: A Sequel to 
" Only Henrietta " 

By Lela Horn Richards. 

Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.90 

The leading characters in this new story are: Hen- 
rietta Kirby; Miss Hester Crosby, an old maiden lady; 
Agnes, Miss Crosby's servant girl; Bowdle, Miss Crosby's 
cook; Mrs. Lovell; Uncle Doctor; Stephen Summers; 
Dick Bentley; and several others. The host of readers 
ready for the sequel to " Only Henrietta " will have a 
treat in store for them. 

" One of the most noteworthy stories for girls issued 
this season. The life of Henrietta is made very real, 
and there is enough incident in the narrative to balance 
the delightful characterization." — Providence Journal. 

" The heroine deserves to have this story develop into 
a series of books; a wholesome, sparkling, satisfying 
story of American girlhood." — New Era Magazine. 
A— 14 



W 56 ^ 










.-JV" .* 












?i 



-^.A 



^ 



0^ .•••' '^ 






"^^^^ .<^^' ♦V.V/k" "e.. A^ ' ^'4 



% V 










. . • ^(J 








^ **^ 



..0^ 







3-'' ^. %??f^- 




**, 



^ 

•^^ 



